14 August 20
We Need to Make Up Ground ASAP
We are WAY behind on donations this month. Who out there hasn’t donated in the past few months and can chip in?
Let’s turn a little attention to RSN’s budget.
Please.
Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
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14 August 20
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Robert Reich | Betsy DeVos's Deadly Plan to Reopen Schools
Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
Reich writes: "Trump education secretary Betsy DeVos is heading the administration's effort to force schools to reopen in the fall for in-person instruction. What's her plan to reopen safely? She doesn't have one."
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Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. (photo: Getty)
Trump Appointed Judge Allows DeVos's Campus Sexual Assault Rule to Take Effect
Mairead McArdle, Yahoo News
McArdle writes: "Education Secretary Betsy DeVos's controversial campus sexual assault rule will take effect on Friday after a federal judge dismissed an attempt from several state attorneys general to block it."
Judge Carl John Nichols ruled that the new rule may go into effect and said that while the attorneys general raised “serious arguments” regarding the rule, “they have not established a likelihood of success on their claims, nor have they established that they are likely to suffer substantial irreparable harm pending further litigation.”
Emirati men perform a traditional dance in front of flags bearing portraits of Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, February 9, 2016. (photo: AP)
Israel-UAE Deal Condemned by Palestinians, Cheered by Egypt and Bahrain
Steve Hendrix and Kareem Fahim, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "An announcement Thursday by the United Arab Emirates that it was pursuing formal ties with Israel was condemned by Palestinians as a betrayal by a putative Arab ally and a crushing setback to their national aspirations."
EXCERPT:
The move by the UAE was a “blatant violation” of understandings, hashed out at Arab summits over the years, that made clear there should be no “normalization between the Arab countries and Israel before the establishment of an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as its capital,” according to Jamal Mhaisen, a senior leader of Fatah, the Palestinian party that rules in the West Bank. He called on other Arab states to take punitive measures against the UAE.
Emirati leaders said that in trying to strike an agreement, they were acting on behalf of Palestinians by extracting a concession from Israel not to pursue formal annexation of Palestinian lands — suggesting that the UAE was striking a blow for a collective Arab front. Their efforts, though, left the region as divided as ever and Palestinians more aggrieved and isolated than before.
Bahrain and Egypt, two of the UAE’s closest regional allies, praised the agreement. Egyptian President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi, writing on Twitter, said it aimed to “stop Israel’s annexation of the Palestinian territories” and “achieve prosperity and stability for our region.”
Bahrain, which has signaled that it too is open to formal ties with Israel, said the UAE had shown “wise leadership” and taken a step “toward the achievement of peace in the Middle East.”
Sen. Kamala Harris. (photo: Mason Trinca/Getty)
Kamala Harris Caught Trump's Attention During the Primary Season by Saying He Should Be Prosecuted After He Leaves Office
Asawin Suebsaeng, The Daily Beast
Excerpt: "Biden's VP pick caught Trump's attention during the primary season by saying he should be prosecuted after he leaves office - and now those comments are taking on a new relevance."
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NAACP President Derrick Johnson, in the blue cap, listens to Rep. John Lewis address a crowd March 1, 2020, on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. (photo: NAACP)
Voter Suppression Is Back, 55 Years After the Voting Rights Act
Derrick Johnson, POLITICO
Johnson writes: "Current challenges to voting are as daunting as they come."
As we mourn John Lewis, it’s time to pass the new voting rights law that bears his name.
oday, we celebrate the 55th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, the civil rights law that John Lewis was willing to die for as he marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. In signing the act in 1965, President Lyndon Johnson pledged: “We will not delay, or we will not hesitate, or we will not turn aside until Americans of every race and color and origin in this country have the same right as all others to share in the process of democracy.” For a nation mourning our fiercest champion of this seminal legislation, we should use this anniversary to double down on fulfilling its promise of participatory democracy.
Current challenges to voting are as daunting as they come. We are in the middle of a global pandemic that is forcing voters—in the most consequential election in modern history—to choose between their lives and their vote. While voting by mail provides a safe, alternative method, the Trump administration is mounting a partisan attack on the Postal Service to undermine its efficacy. Exacerbating the health crisis is rampant voter suppression by states and localities that limits access to the ballot and jeopardizes chances that the ballots cast will be counted. Trump’s judicial appointments are ensuring that voter suppression is upheld by the courts.
To begin, we must preserve Lewis’ legacy—the Voting Rights Act. Seven years ago, the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder “put a dagger in the heart of the Voting Rights Act,” as Lewis said at the time. The ruling—which eliminated preclearance of voting changes in jurisdictions with a history of discrimination—was devastating to voters who enjoyed its protection for decades and to Lewis personally. He had shepherded reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act through overwhelming support by Congress in 2006. When its constitutionality was challenged, Lewis filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court and attended oral arguments. After the court’s ruling, he immediately went to work on restoring the Voting Rights Act. The first bill was introduced in January 2014, and it was finally passed by the House of Representatives on December 6, 2019.
Renamed after Lewis, this voting rights bill has sat on the desk of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for 240 days. The obstruction is unforgivable, especially now. The same Republican senators who paid tribute to Lewis after his passing now even refuse to move his signature legislation. There is every reason to act. Chief Justice John Roberts infamously noted in his Shelby County opinion that “[o]ur country has changed.” But the floodgates of voter suppression that opened immediately after the court’s ruling—imposing strict voter ID requirements, ending early voting, closing polling places, purging voters and redrawing election districts—provide overwhelming evidence of modern-day voting discrimination to support restoring the Voting Rights Act to full strength.
Congress must also do everything within its power to ensure the health and safety of American citizens as they participate in November’s elections. The primaries showed us the great risks facing voters as they try to exercise their civic obligation. As infections and fatalities rise across the country, it is imperative we shield voters from the dangers of coronavirus. We have fought too long and too hard for the right to vote to allow this pandemic to hijack our democracy.
Specifically, Congress needs to provide states with $3.6 billion in funding and election guardrails to ensure full and safe voter participation. States must offer alternative methods for voting, including voting by mail and in-person voting. We must ensure that the Postal Service is not weaponized and that ballots will be securely returned, processed and counted in a fair and accurate manner. Given the history and significance of in-person voting to the Black community, it is essential that in-person voting be expanded to ensure voter safety. Early voting must be available, as well as expanded voting hours and curbside voting. Election Day voting must be safely administered and fully available with sufficient precincts, ballots, and poll workers to match the number of eligible voters. Online and same-day voter registration should be available, and we should rely on paper ballots instead of touchscreen machines that are less safe and reliable. Importantly, all of this must be implemented now. Early voting is about to commence, and we can’t afford to wait until November to get this right.
Last March, we commemorated the 55th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, in which Lewis risked his life to secure passage of the Voting Rights Act. I was marching on the Edmund Pettus Bridge when the ailing congressman appeared, to urge us to continue the fight and “to vote like we’ve never voted before.” We must honor his request to redeem the soul of this nation. And we must do so while protecting the health and safety of our communities. Our democracy is depending on it.
U.S. Post Office. (photo: Mike Blake/Reuters)
The Post Office Is Deactivating Mail Sorting Machines Ahead of the Election
Aaron Gordon, VICE
Gordon writes: "The United States Postal Service is removing mail sorting machines from facilities around the country without any official explanation or reason given."
Good thing nobody's predicting a huge surge in mail any time soon.
.... Motherboard has learned through interviews with postal workers and union officials. In many cases, these are the same machines that would be tasked with sorting ballots, calling into question promises made by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy that the USPS has “ample capacity” to handle the predicted surge in mail-in ballots.
Motherboard identified 19 mail sorting machines from five processing facilities across the U.S. that either have already been removed or are scheduled to be in the near future. But the Postal Service operates hundreds of distribution facilities around the country, so it is not clear precisely how many machines are getting removed and for what purpose.
Even to local union officials, USPS has not announced any policy, explained why they are doing this, what will happen to the machines and the workers who use them. Nor has management provided a rationale for dismantling and removing the machines from the facility rather than merely not operating them when they’re not needed.
“I’m not sure you’re going to find an answer for why [the machines being removed] makes sense,” said Iowa Postal Workers Union President Kimberly Karol, “because we haven’t figured that out either.”
The postal workers Motherboard spoke to said having machines removed, replaced, or modified is nothing new, but this time it seems to be more widespread, include a larger number of machines at their respective facility, and potentially impacts the facility’s ability to process large numbers of mail, including ballots, in a short time span.
“Look at it this way: Your local grocery store was forced to cut 1/3 of its cash-out lines, but management expected the same productivity, quality, and speed for the customer,” said an employee at a Buffalo distribution facility, which they said is set to lose six out of 21 mail sorting machines. “It’s just never going to happen.”
After publication, USPS spokesperson David Partenheimer told Motherboard, “The Postal Service routinely moves equipment around its network as necessary to match changing mail and package volumes. Package volume is up, but mail volume continues to decline. Adapting our processing infrastructure to the current volumes will ensure more efficient, cost effective operations and better service for our customers.”
Do you work for the post office? Do you know anything about sorting machines being removed from distribution facilities? We’d love to hear from you. Email Aaron Gordon at aaron.gordon@vice.com.
While the consequences of this new policy are mostly unclear for now, it neatly fits with the sudden, opaque, and drastic changes made by DeJoy, a longtime Republican fundraiser and Trump donor, in the less than two months he’s been postmaster general. Like his other changes, including the curtailing of overtime resulting in the widespread mail delays and sudden reorganization of the entire USPS, it is possible to see some semblance of corporate logic while second-guessing the decision to make drastic changes on the eve of the presidential election in which the USPS will play a critical role.
Most of the machines being dismantled in the facilities Motherboard identified are delivery bar code sorters (DBCS), into which letters, postcards and similarly sized mail (but not magazines and large envelopes, which are categorized as “flats” and sorted differently) are fed. The DBCS sorts the mail into one of hundreds of “stackers,” a slot about a foot long. Each slot is for a different destination, be it another post office or distribution facility.
A DBCS typically requires two workers to operate: one to feed the mail into the machine, and the other to collect the mail from the stackers and put them in the appropriate bins for transport. Running at peak efficiency, the machines can sort about 35,000 pieces of mail per hour, a remarkable and oddly mesmerizing feat. But during times of short staffing or low mail volume—both of which have occurred during COVID—DBCSs can be run with one and a half or even just a single worker, albeit less productively.
Marketing mail is down more than 15 percent through June of this year compared to last year. While this is a much steeper drop than recent years, it is continuing a decade-long trend of mail volume decline for everything but packages. In other words, DBCSs have less mail to sort than they ever have before and it’s far from clear how much of that mail is ever coming back. So it stands to reason the USPS might not need as many of them.
The postal workers interviewed by Motherboard understood this, and in some cases even made the argument some DBCS machines might be of better use at other facilities. But they had other concerns about removing the machines altogether. If something goes wrong with the DBCSs they have left, there are fewer machines to pick up the slack.
“When you take out one of the machines, it takes away our ability to respond to unforeseen things that may happen,” said Karol, who added that although her facility in Waterloo will have other DBCSs, having fewer of them “limits our ability to respond” by making adjustments and moving mail around.
Paul McKenna, president of Milwaukee Area Local 3 of the American Postal Workers Union, said that some of the DBCSs staying will have about 50 more stackers added to them, meaning the machines can sort mail to a larger number of destinations. This will help alleviate the pressure during high mail volume periods like the Christmas rush—when there is simply more mail in general to all places—as well as provide advantages during lower-volume periods like the dead of summer. But it won’t necessarily help the unique challenge of election mail. In that case, the mail surge stays local.
Some letter carriers and distribution facility employees told Motherboard election mail is often sorted by hand to ensure it gets handled promptly and properly, but this seems to vary by location.
That being said, this would only be a problem for voters who waited until the last minute to send back their ballots. If mail-in ballots are sent and returned over a period of weeks instead of days, it is unlikely, the postal workers said, to stress the machines even if some are taken away.
“We would have the capacity to run the volume of ballots that are expected if we have it in a longer period of time,” said Paul McKenna, president of Milwaukee Area Local 3 of the American Postal Workers Union. He likened it to flattening the curve of coronavirus. Now, he said, Americans have to flatten a different curve.
Government contractors erect a section of the border wall along the Colorado River in Yuma, Arizona, back in September 2019. (photo: Matt York/AP)
Officials Ignored Warnings About Trump Wall Threat to Endangered Species
Nina Lakhani, Guardian UK
Lakhani writes: "Stark warnings by federal scientists and wildlife experts about the grave threat posed by Donald Trump's border wall to rare and endangered species were repeatedly ignored by the Department of Homeland Security."
Emails reveal experts at San Bernardino national wildlife refuge repeatedly sounded the alarm over grave threat to rare species
tark warnings by federal scientists and wildlife experts about the grave threat posed by Donald Trump’s border wall to rare and endangered species were repeatedly ignored by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), according to documents seen by the Guardian.
A cache of emails obtained using the Freedom of Information Act (Foia) by environmental groups reveal multiple efforts over several months by experts at the San Bernardino national wildlife refuge in south-eastern Arizona, to save rare desert springs and crystalline streams which provide the only US habitat for the endangered endemic Río Yaqui fish.
Even before Trump’s water-guzzling concrete barrier, the border region’s water reserves were depleted due to prolonged drought linked to the climate crisis. The expansion of water-intensive cash crops and urban growth have also drained aquifers in the arid region, leaving several endangered and threatened species wholly reliant on the freshwater ponds found in the refuge.
In an email sent last October, the long-serving refuge manager, Bill Radke, warned colleagues at the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) that the threat of groundwater depletion was a “dire emergency”.
It was around the same time that DHS contractors began pumping massive quantities of water from the aquifer relied upon by the refuge to mix concrete for construction of a 20-mile stretch of Trump’s 30ft-high border wall.
A few weeks later in early December, Radke described the water usage for the border wall as “the current greatest threat to endangered species in the south-west region” – referring to the states of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma.
According to the emails, refuge staff began monitoring the impact and felt forced to take “life support actions”, allowing three ponds to dry up in an effort to save some of the fish. “We are monitoring pond levels. We are developing/implementing contingency plans to protect at least a subset of the endangered fish population that once thrived on the refuge. We are hoping for the best, but are planning for the worst,” wrote Radke.
The documents suggest as much as 700,000 gallons of groundwater was being extracted per day to construct the barrier, and DHS officials ignored direct requests from the FWS to avoid drilling wells in a five-mile buffer around the refuge. “Instead contractors made plans to drill even closer to the refuge, drilling their second new well 480 feet east of [the refuge],” Radke wrote.
The multibillion-dollar border wall project has avoided proper environmental, scientific and cost oversight as the government suspended 28 federal laws relating to clean air and water, endangered species, public lands and the rights of Native Americans, in order to expedite construction despite multiple legal challenges.
“The DHS was warned that wall construction would drain artesian pools and kill wildlife, including endangered species. The DHS knew it and did it anyway. None of this would be legal if the environmental laws were still in place,” said Laiken Jordahl, the borderlands campaigner at the not-for-profit Center for Biological Diversity which obtained the emails.
“These documents make it very clear: the survival or extinction of these endangered desert fish is entirely in this administration’s hands.”
An FWS spokeswoman said larger pumps were now required to maintain pond levels and appropriate pond outflows due to a drop in pressure in the aquifer. “The border wall construction contractor has purchased and is currently installing the needed higher capacity pumps,” she said.
But, pumping water is only a temporary solution and the pumps are already too late for at least three ponds. A document obtained by Defenders of Wildlife, suggests water extraction was still having a detrimental impact to the refuge as late as May 2020.
The endangered and protected species under threat from the lowered water levels include the Yaqui catfish, beautiful shiner, Yaqui chub, Yaqui topminnow, Chiricahua leopard frog and Mexican garter snake.
The DHS insists that it continues to operate under the spirit of the National Environmental Policy Act (Nepa), considered the cornerstone of environmental protection in the US, and takes into account public and expert comments.
A Customs and Border Protection (CBP) spokesman told High Country News that “DHS and CBP have and continue to coordinate weekly, and more frequently on an as needed basis, to answer questions concerning new border wall construction projects and to address environmental concerns from the US Fish and Wildlife Service.”
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