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11 March 21
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Jesse Jackson | Asian Americans Are Confronting a New Wave of Racial Violence
Jesse Jackson, Chicago Sun Times
Jackson writes:
The scapegoating of Asian Americans is taking an ugly, violent turn.
new wave of anti-Asian racial violence is sweeping the country. Sadly, racial violence, bigotry and hatred directed at Asian Americans has scarred their history in this country.
Nothing is more dehumanizing. Asian Americans come from many countries and many cultures. They have played a remarkable role in building this country. And yet, the violence erases their humanity, identifies them as the other, and ignores their contributions.
I remember in May of 1983, I met with Lily Chin and Asian American leaders at San Francisco Chinatown’s Cameron House. A year earlier, her son Vincent was chased down in the streets of Detroit by two unemployed white auto workers, who beat him to death with baseball bats.
“It’s because of you mother-(expletive)s we’re out of work!” shouted one of his attackers. They thought Vincent was Japanese. This was the 1980s when U.S. auto plants were shutting down during the Reagan recession, and blame was wrongfully placed on competition from Japanese auto imports, setting off a wave of anti-Japanese/anti-Asian hysteria.
I was struck then by the way Lily Chin stood up and fought against this injustice, and how leaders like Norman Fong, Mabel Teng and Helen Zia organized marches and resistance in the Asian American communities from Los Angeles to New York.
They rose up to organize against anti-Asian racial violence. They found common ground with African Americans, Latinos and others, and forged alliances with people and organizations that have long been targets of racial violence. The fight against racial violence became a key pillar of my 1984 presidential campaign, and Asian Americans became an integral part of our Rainbow Coalition from its very start.
Today, violence targeting Asian Americans is becoming an alarming weekly, if not daily, occurrence. It is stoked to no small degree by more than a year of Trump obsessively describing the coronavirus as the “China Virus” and “Kung Flu.” Fueling his base of white nationalism, Trump resurrected a “Yellow Peril” scare.
Trump combined this vitriol with a big lie, blaming our loss of jobs to China. The reality is that American corporations took our jobs to China, seeking to take advantage of low-wage labor with few rights and few environmental protections. It was U.S. policy that failed to protect our jobs. Now Trump and others blame China when it was our leaders who were at fault.
Words matter. The scapegoating of Asian Americans is taking an ugly, violent turn: On Jan. 28, 2021, 84-year-old Vicha Ratanapakdee was out for a morning walk in San Francisco when he was violently assaulted. Days later, he died.
On Feb. 3 in Manhattan, Noel Quintana, 61, was riding the subway when his assaulter slashed his face.
Last year, an Asian woman in Brooklyn had acid thrown in her face as she took out the garbage. A Burmese man and his two children were slashed by a knife-wielding attacker while shopping in Midland, Texas.
On street corners and in shopping malls, “Asian Americans Have Been Attacked, Spat On, and Cursed Out,” as reported by Slate. Stop AAPI Hate received reports of more than 3,000 incidents of anti-Asian violence in 2020.
It’s reminiscent of the post-9/11 hysteria that targeted Muslims, as well as Sikhs and other South Asians living in the U.S.
For Chinese Americans, Lunar New Year in the month of February is usually a time for firecrackers, lion dances and celebration in Asian communities. This year, community leaders marked the occasion by confronting this inglorious rise of racial violence.
From progressive Asian community activists to Hollywood actors, business leaders and athletes, Asian communities are rising up and confronting this new wave of racial violence. Community activists are organizing self-patrols and community escorts for the elderly. They want these anti-Asian attacks to be prosecuted as hate crimes.
In the best tradition of the civil and human rights movement, they are holding marches and rallies to defend their communities against violence, and building alliances with African Americans, Latinos and other communities fighting against racial injustice.
NBA basketball player Jeremy Lin said, “It would be hypocritical of me to say I’m anti-racism if I only stand up for people who look like me. There is definitely power in unification and solidarity. ... We as minorities also have to collaborate, unify and use our voices and stand up for each other.”
President Biden has weighed in, issuing an executive memorandum saying the “inflammatory and xenophobic rhetoric has put Asian American and Pacific Islander persons, families, communities and businesses at risk.” Special task forces are being organized by local police departments. Local elected leaders have taken to the media to call for unity with the Chinese and Asian communities and decry the violence and harassment.
Some of the most shameful chapters of our history involve racial prejudice against Asian Americans. In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act (extended to all Asians in 1924) made it illegal for Chinese to immigrate to the U.S. In the Rock Springs Massacre of 1885, white mobs in Wyoming murdered 28 Chinese coal miners and burned Chinatown to the ground. World War II witnessed the internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans in U.S. concentration camps, even as many of their sons fought loyally in the U.S. Armed Forces.
Asian communities are suffering, even as they are summoning the courage of Lily Chin, turning their pain into power, determined to stop the violence and never surrender. At Rainbow PUSH, we stand with them, and call on all citizens of conscience to join them in their drive to confront the hatred and stop the violence.
Voters wait to cast their ballots Nov. 2 at a polling place in Sterling Heights, Michigan. (photo: Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
How GOP-Backed Voting Measures Could Create Hurdles for Tens of Millions of Voters
Amy Gardner, Kate Rabinowitz and Harry Stevens, The Washington Post
At least 250 new laws have been proposed in 43 states to limit mail, early in-person and Election Day voting.
he GOP’s national push to enact hundreds of new election restrictions could strain every available method of voting for tens of millions of Americans, potentially amounting to the most sweeping contraction of ballot access in the United States since the end of Reconstruction, when Southern states curtailed the voting rights of formerly enslaved Black men, a Washington Post analysis has found.
In 43 states across the country, Republican lawmakers have proposed at least 250 laws that would limit mail, early in-person and Election Day voting with such constraints as stricter ID requirements, limited hours or narrower eligibility to vote absentee, according to data compiled as of Feb. 19 by the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice. Even more proposals have been introduced since then.
Proponents say the provisions are necessary to shore up public confidence in the integrity of elections after the 2020 presidential contest, when then-President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of election fraud convinced millions of his supporters that the results were rigged against him.
But in most cases, Republicans are proposing solutions in states where elections ran smoothly, including in many with results that Trump and his allies did not contest or allege to be tainted by fraud. The measures are likely to disproportionately affect those in cities and Black voters in particular, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic — laying bare, critics say, the GOP’s true intent: gaining electoral advantage.
The rush to crack down on voting methods comes after many states temporarily expanded mail and early voting in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic, leading to the largest voter turnout in more than a century. The changes reshaped both who turned out and how they voted, with an astounding 116 million people — 73 percent of the electorate — casting their ballots before Election Day, according to The Post’s analysis.
In many states, Democrats are trying to make those expansions permanent — and broaden voting access in other ways. Congressional Democrats are also pushing a sweeping proposal to impose national standards that would override much of what Republican state lawmakers are trying to constrict, including measures that would provide universal eligibility to vote by mail, at least 15 days of early voting, mandatory online voter registration and the restoration of voting rights for released felons. The measure has passed the House but faces steep opposition in the evenly divided Senate.
Republican state legislators, meanwhile, echoing Trump’s false claims that the election was stolen from him, are pushing hard in the other direction.
The outcome of dueling efforts will vary depending on partisan control of statehouses. The same party controls both legislative chambers and the governorship in 38 states — 23 of them Republican and 15 of them Democratic. Many of the most restrictive proposals have surfaced in states where the GOP has a total hold on power, including Arizona, Georgia, South Carolina, Missouri and Florida.
Some of the bills in Democratic-controlled states such as Washington, one of the first states to implement all-mail voting, have little chance of passage. But others are steaming ahead: In Georgia, for example, the House has passed a sweeping bill that would limit early-voting hours on weekends and restrict the use of drop boxes for mail ballots, among other provisions. The state Senate, meanwhile, approved a measure that would eliminate no-excuses absentee voting altogether — limiting eligibility to those ages 65 and over, people with disabilities or those who will be away from home on Election Day.
Limits to early or absentee voting are the most common measures among this year’s batch of proposed restrictions, with such bills on the table in 33 states. Nearly 85 million voters used one of those methods to cast their ballots in those states last year — more than half of all Americans who voted in the Nov. 3 election.
And the new proposals could do more than rein in early and mail voting. Like squeezing a balloon, the measures could dramatically shift voting to Election Day. That has raised alarm among voting rights advocates that the 2022 midterm elections and 2024 presidential contest could be marred by catastrophically long waits to vote — particularly in big cities, where lines are already a common hurdle for millions of Americans.
“Long lines are going to be the story of 2022 unless something is done,” said Democratic elections lawyer Marc Elias, who said he is preparing for a “busy year” of litigation if these laws are enacted. “We have to recognize early on in this next election cycle that this is now the defining feature of the Republican Party, in competitive states and uncompetitive states. In red states and blue states. They don’t run on economic issues, or even social issues. They run on shrinking the vote.”
Republicans deny the bills are aimed at suppressing turnout, saying they are essential to improving public confidence in the integrity of elections, even in places where elections ran smoothly, such as Florida.
“There’s nothing wrong with securing a great system,” said Florida state Sen. Dennis Baxley at a committee hearing Wednesday in Tallahassee, where lawmakers gave initial approval to a proposal to curtail the use of ballot boxes and eliminate automatic registration for absentee voting, which would force voters to reapply each election cycle.
Other Republicans noted that some of their proposals will help speed the process. The Florida bill, for instance, would allow election officials to begin mail-ballot tabulation earlier in the election cycle — a provision state elections supervisors support because it will ensure a quicker result and fewer doubts about the outcome.
In a statement, Mandi Merritt, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, said that the national party “remains laser focused on protecting election integrity, and that includes aggressively engaging at the state level on voting laws and litigating as necessary.”
“Democrats have abandoned any pretense that they still care about election issues such as voter roll maintenance and restricting ballot harvesting that were once welcomed as reasonable and routine,” she added. “The reality is that we want all eligible voters to be able to vote and vote easily — but voters must also have confidence that our elections systems have safeguards to prevent fraud and ensure accuracy.”
Nevertheless, multiple scholars and historians said the proposed restrictions would amount to the most dramatic curtailment of ballot access since the late-19th century, when Southern states effectively reversed the 15th Amendment’s prohibition on denying the vote based on race by enacting poll taxes, literacy tests and other restrictions that disenfranchised virtually all Black men.
It took many more decades for Congress to prohibit such laws and broadly enshrine voting rights with the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and other anti-discrimination laws. Voting rights advocates say the avalanche of proposed restrictions flowing through state legislatures this year could undo much of that progress.
“There’s this risk that we’re witnessing the rollback of the ‘Second Reconstruction,’ ” said Edward B. Foley, a law professor at Ohio State University, using a common term for the civil rights era. “It’s not exactly the same as the end of the first Reconstruction, and one has to hope that it won’t be. But there are enough parallels to be nerve-racking.”
Targeting mail voting
Of the roughly 250 voting restrictions proposed in 43 states — seven times the number introduced in state legislatures by the same time last year — about half seek to limit mail voting, according to the Brennan Center. Proposals target every step of the process, including limiting who is allowed to cast ballots by mail, eliminating the option of being sent a ballot automatically each election cycle and adding ID, notary or witness requirements.
Far more Democrats than Republicans voted by mail last year, in part because Trump warned his supporters to steer clear of mail ballots, falsely asserting that the process was not secure, and in part because Democrats urged their own to take advantage of the option to avoid long lines on Election Day. As a result, many of the proposed curtailments on mail balloting are expected to make it harder for Democrats to vote than Republicans.
Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania are among the nine states considering limiting mail voting — or further limiting it — to narrow groups of people, such as seniors or those with disabilities.
Trump contested the results in all three states last fall, claiming falsely that lax security and new rules imposed illegally by judges caused his defeat there. With electoral margins of approximately 10,000, 12,000 and 82,000, respectively, these states could easily have swung for Trump if some of the proposed restrictions were in place last year, experts say.
One extraordinary proposal in Arizona would require mail ballots to be postmarked by the Thursday before Election Day, even if they arrive at election offices before polls close.
No evidence has surfaced to support Republican claims of widespread fraud in the state, where President Biden defeated Trump by less than 11,000 votes, and where most Arizonans have been voting by mail for more than a decade. The Republican governor, Doug Ducey, told Trump in the Oval Office last year that it is “difficult, if not impossible, to cheat” under the state’s mail-voting system.
Trump was open about his view that expanding mail voting would benefit Democrats, but he wrapped his grievance in a false narrative of fraud that conjured unsubstantiated beliefs among his supporters that thousands and even millions of absentee ballots were fraudulently submitted. He also falsely claimed that there was no security in place to prevent ballot theft, and that election workers had abetted a giant crime by not checking signatures on ballot envelopes; sending ballots to the deceased or to empty lots; double- and even triple-counting Democratic votes; or accepting van loads of forged ballots at counting facilities.
No evidence has emerged to substantiate any of those claims.
But Trump’s attacks on voting through the mail led many Republicans to shy away from using mail ballots, and they opted instead to vote in person on Election Day.
In Pennsylvania, Biden won 76 percent of the absentee vote, while Trump won 65 percent of the Election Day vote. In Georgia, Biden won 65 percent of the absentee vote, while Trump won 60 percent of the Election Day vote.
Michael McDonald, a political scientist at the University of Florida, noted that the main reason Trump’s supporters don’t believe U.S. elections are secure is because Trump and his allies have drummed that point into them. Their claim of wanting to improve perceptions of voter integrity, he said, is an excuse to enact suppressive legislation that would disproportionately affect Democrats.
“If Republicans truly wanted to increase confidence in elections, they would stop saying, ‘Don’t trust the elections,’ ” McDonald said.
Election Day pressure
Some of the GOP proposals would strain the overall election system — particularly in states with a history of disenfranchising voters of color, who often experience long lines in their precincts, among other hurdles.
In Georgia, for instance, Democrats say the Republican proposal to curtail early voting on weekends is a direct broadside at “Souls to the Polls,” the get-out-the-vote program that encourages Black voters to cast their ballots after church on Sundays during early voting.
Fewer early-voting hours would transfer more pressure onto Election Day resources. The same is true for another proposal that would prohibit election officials from accepting grants from nongovernmental entities. Such philanthropic grants are widely credited with helping election officials prepare for the surge of mail balloting and set up safe in-person voting amid the pandemic.
“There is no justification for that. None,” said Georgia state Sen. Elena Parent, a Democrat from the Atlanta area. “All it will do is lead to longer lines.” As for the Republican rationale that limiting early-voting hours is an equity issue for smaller counties with fewer resources, Parent said: “It’s not an equity issue when one county has a million people and others don’t. The equity issue is preventing the very populous counties from making voting accessible for their people.”
Georgia Republicans have also proposed banning “line-warming” activities such as passing out water and blankets to voters standing in long lines. Supporters of the measure, including Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R), say the practice encourages illegal campaign activity if volunteers are advocating for their preferred candidate and handing out free goodies in the process. Opponents say such activities are necessary to ease the discomfort that many voters face in cities that regularly struggle with long lines.
As one epicenter for the voting wars this year, Georgia’s debate over election restrictions has prompted impassioned speeches from Black lawmakers and civil rights leaders about the echoes of racist voter suppression they see in the Republican proposals.
“Today is a dark, dark day in our state,” Rep. Nikema Williams, the chairwoman of the state Democratic Party, said on March 1, the day the House approved its elections bill. “Republicans voted as a caucus to enact the most blatantly racist attacks on voting rights in the South since Jim Crow, after losing an election they planned, built and oversaw.”
Georgia state Rep. Barry Fleming, the top Republican booster for the sweeping House election bill, said during debate over the measure that day that the proposed law would “begin an effort to restore confidence in our election system by the voters of the state of Georgia.” Fleming did not respond to a request for an interview.
In Alabama, a proposal is under consideration to eliminate straight-ticket voting, which critics said is yet another example of a measure that would create longer lines. In Tennessee, Republican state Sen. Janice Bowling proposed eliminating early voting entirely — but withdrew the bill when she found no one to take it up in the House.
Bowling explained her rationale for the measure to the Herald Chronicle of Winchester, Tenn.: “There was a time in the not-too-distant past where we didn’t have early votes,” she said. “People went to their precinct on Election Day and they cast their ballot, which is one of the most important things citizens can do.”
Tennessee is among the states considering stiff new restrictions even though it is a deeply red state where no one contested the results last year. Another is Iowa, where Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) this week signed legislation that reduces early- and Election Day voting hours and moves up the deadline for mail ballots to arrive at local election offices.
Such red-state initiatives also suggest that many Republicans feel compelled to propose restrictions to signal their loyalty to Trump and his supporters — and to avoid a primary challenge in their next elections.
“No one questioned the legitimacy of anything that happened in our state election,” said Sharon Steckman, a Democratic state representative in Iowa and a leading critic of the Republican election bill. “They won. They won overwhelmingly. We had no fraud in Iowa.”
Steckman thinks the restrictions could hurt Republican voters, too, especially with so many first-time voters coming out to support Trump last year.
“We have a lot of rural Iowa that went solidly for Trump,” she said. “We lost a Democratic seat we had for 40 years. I’m not sure how it’s going to play out, but there were a lot of people we had never seen before at the polls — young men, most of them. Young, White men.”
Iowa Republicans defended the new measures. David Kochel, a longtime GOP strategist in the state, said a provision that would prevent local election administrators from unilaterally changing their counties’ voting rules is reasonable.
“Auditors took advantage of the pandemic to do things outside their statutory authority,” Kochel said. “This just makes sure every voter in every county has the exact same access as the person in the neighboring county or neighboring town.”
Kochel also said curtailments of early voting and Election Day voting are unlikely to produce long lines in his state, where waits are rare.
A building battle
The Republican-backed bills are causing some angst inside the party, as some worry that support for the measures could hurt lawmakers in competitive districts. One GOP strategist in Georgia, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal party strategy, said state Republican leaders gave lawmakers “the green light to drop whatever bill they wanted” to placate Trump loyalists and avoid a primary challenge.
The plan was to prevent most of the measures from actually reaching the House and Senate floor, the strategist said. But now both the Georgia House and Senate have passed substantive bills.
That is forcing Republican lawmakers from more competitive districts to choose their poison: risk a primary challenge by voting against the measures, or risk a general-election challenge if they support them.
If many of the measures proposed across the country pass, legal scholars and voting advocates alike say some will be difficult to defend in court. Foley, the law professor at Ohio State, said taking away a previously granted voting right will prompt scrutiny of the law’s rationale — with the burden on the government to justify a new hurdle for voters.
Democrats will also be armed with the fact that until Trump launched his campaign against mail voting, Republicans were champions of the practice, passing legislation in Florida, Pennsylvania and elsewhere, and developing sophisticated ballot “chase” operations to encourage their voters to request, fill out and return mail ballots.
Arguing that some of the proposals could disproportionately affect people of color is a trickier legal prospect because of the federal bench’s history of narrowly defining racist intent under the Voting Rights Act.
Laws that return states to pre-coronavirus standards will also be harder to challenge given the extraordinary circumstances that prompted voting changes in 2020.
But there is little question that a new wave of election-related litigation will follow quickly if any of these measures are enacted.
“We are actively monitoring every state’s legislature to see whether they are going to enact suppressive voting legislation,” said Elias, the Democratic lawyer. “I can promise those Republican legislatures that if they violate the rights of their voters in an effort to curry favor with a failed one-term president, we will see them in court.”
The Say Their Names memorial site by George Floyd Square in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S., commemorates Black Americans killed by police. (photo: Nicholas Pfosi/Reuters)
ALSO SEE: Minneapolis Promised Change After George Floyd.
Instead It's Geared Up for War
Third-Degree Murder Charge Reinstated in George Floyd Murder Case
Al Jazeera
Former Minnesota policeman Derek Chauvin will now face three charges in the death of Floyd.
Minnesota judge granted a request by prosecutors on Thursday to reinstate a charge of third-degree murder against Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who is on trial already facing second-degree murder and manslaughter charges.
Chauvin is to be tried for the killing of George Floyd.
Judge Peter Cahill’s decision comes after the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled on Friday that he must reconsider a third-degree murder charge against 44-year-old Chauvin, whose trial got under way with jury selection this week in Minneapolis.
“I have to follow the rule that the court of appeals has put in place,” Cahill said, explaining his decision.
Chauvin already faces a more serious charge of second-degree murder, which carries a sentence of up to 40 years in prison, as well as a charge of second-degree manslaughter.
The reinstatement of a third-degree murder charge was a victory for state prosecutors, who had sought the additional lesser murder charge in part to afford them an extra path to a conviction should the jury find the evidence does not support the most serious charge. The third-degree murder charge carries a sentence of up to 25 years in prison.
Legal experts say the additional charge helps prosecutors by giving jurors one more option to convict Chauvin of murder.
The dispute over the third-degree murder charge revolved around the conviction of another former Minneapolis police officer in the unrelated killing of an Australian woman. The appeals court recently affirmed Mohamed Noor’s third-degree murder conviction in the 2017 shooting death of Justine Ruszczyk Damond, and the state used that affirmation to argue that it established a new justification for the charge in Chauvin’s case.
Cahill agreed that the precedent has now been established.
Chauvin’s charges stem from his actions during the arrest of Floyd on May 25, 2020. Videos show Chauvin, who is white, kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes on a sidewalk outside a grocery store as the Black man pleaded for his life and then stopped moving. Police were arresting him on suspicion of using a counterfeit $20 bill at the store. Floyd’s death outraged people around the world and helped fuel one of the largest protest movements ever seen in the United States, with daily demonstrations against racism and police brutality.
Three other police officers charged in the killing will be tried separately.
Jury selection for Chauvin’s trial was set to resume on Thursday morning, with five jurors already seated.
Lawyers have given considerable attention to the jury pool’s attitudes towards the police in the first two days of questioning, trying to determine whether they are more inclined to believe testimony from law enforcement over evidence from other witnesses to the fatal confrontation.
The first juror picked on Wednesday, a man who works in sales management and grew up in a mostly white part of central Minnesota, acknowledged saying on his written questionnaire that he had a “very favorable” opinion of the Black Lives Matter movement and a “somewhat unfavorable” impression of the Blue Lives Matter countermovement in favour of the police, yet “somewhat agreed” that police do not get the respect they deserve. He said he agrees that there are bad police officers.
“Are there good ones? Yes. So I don’t think it’s right to completely blame the entire organisation,” he told the court under questioning from prosecutor Steve Schleicher.
He also said he would be more inclined to believe an officer over the word of another witness. But he said he could set aside any ideas about the inherent honesty of an officer and evaluate each witness on their own.
The second, a man who works in information technology security, marked “strongly agree” on a question about whether he believes police in his community make him feel safe. His community was not specified — jurors are being drawn from all over Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis and many of its suburbs.
“In my community, I think when there is suspicious activity the police will stop by, they will ask a question,” he said. “I think that sense of community is all we want, right? We want to live in a community where we feel safe regardless of race, colour and gender.”
Schleicher noted that the man also stated in his questionnaire that he strongly disagreed with the concept of “defunding” the police, which has become a political flashpoint locally and across the country in the wake of Floyd’s death.
“While I necessarily might not agree with the police action in some situation, I believe that in order for police to make my community safe they have to have the money,” he replied.
The questionnaire explores potential jurors’ familiarity with the case and their own contacts with police. Their answers have not been made public, and the jurors’ identities are being kept secret. Their racial backgrounds often are not disclosed in open court.
Chauvin and three other officers were fired. The others face an August trial on aiding and abetting charges. The defence has not said whether Chauvin will testify in his defence.
Schleicher used a peremptory challenge on Wednesday to remove from the panel a woman who has a nephew who is a sheriff’s deputy in western Minnesota. She said she was dismayed by the violence that followed Floyd’s death.
“I personally didn’t see any usefulness to it,” she said. “I didn’t see anything accomplished by it, except I suppose bring attention to the frustrations of the people involved. But did I see anything useful coming out of the burning of Lake Street and that sort of thing? I did not.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders' 2020 campaign manager Faiz Shakir. (photo: AP)
Bernie Sanders' Campaign Chief Is Running a New Media Startup Aimed at Pushing Biden to the Left
Lachlan Markay, Axios
Markay writes:
en. Bernie Sanders' 2020 campaign manager is running a new media startup aiming to use ideologically driven storytelling to push the Biden administration to the left, the group tells Axios.
Why it matters: Faiz Shakir's new venture, dubbed More Perfect Union, scored a win last week when White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain shared its video about efforts to unionize an Alabama Amazon warehouse. It was an early sign the administration is attuned to the priorities of its party's left flank.
- Klain's tweet came shortly after President Biden backed organizing efforts at the Amazon facility.
What's happening: Shakir told Axios he remains a political adviser to Sanders (I-Vt.).
- He formed More Perfect Union and an advocacy arm late last year. The nonprofit groups are independent of Sanders' political operation but share its policy goals and some of its tactics, Shakir said.
- "We have a desire for policy change or political change," Shakir said during an interview. "We aren't going to be afraid to say, 'Hey, you know, based off of our reporting, what we've learned on this, a policy solution to address this would be X, Y or Z.'"
- A staff of 12 has already produced videos covering issues including student debt, marijuana legalization, technology policy and abortion.
The backstory: Shakir said he modeled the new venture in part on ThinkProgress, the defunct news and opinion website he used to run for the Center for American Progress Action Fund.
- "This is ThinkProgress for a digital age," he said, with an emphasis on video and graphics that would be central "if we were relaunching ThinkProgress in this modern environment."
- He also cited the success of some conservative video creators. "I've seen the success of Prager U, Ben Shapiro, a bunch of people on the right, Steven Crowder and others who have done this well."
Between the lines: Shakir declined to identify his new venture's funders but said they are "mission-aligned."
- "There's no corporate entities funding it," he said.
- As a nonprofit venture, More Perfect Union does not have to reveal them, though entities such as labor unions and foundations may end up disclosing grants to the group.
Evanston, a suburb of Chicago. (photo: Nam Y Huh/AP)
Chicago Suburb to Become First City to Provide Reparations to Black Residents for Housing
Oliver Milman, Guardian UK
Milman writes:
Evanston city council to vote on the issue on 22 March for an initial disbursement of about $400,000 for housing needs
suburb of Chicago is set to become the first place in the US to provide reparations to its Black residents for housing through a tax on marijuana sales, with a plan to distribute $10m over the coming decade.
Evanston, which sits on the shores of Lake Michigan north of downtown Chicago, is set for an initial disbursement of about $400,000 for housing needs, with a vote on the issue set to take place at the city council on 22 March.
Under the proposal, residents would get $25,000 to use towards home improvements or mortgage assistance. To qualify, residents must have either been or descended from a Black person who lived in Evanston before 1969 who suffered from discriminatory housing practices by government and banks.
This funding will be the first to flow in the wake of a landmark decision by Evanston in 2019 to financially compensate its Black residents for historical racism and discrimination. These reparations, set to total $10m, will come via community donations and a tax on marijuana.
Robin Rue Simmons, a Black alderman who represents Evanston’s historically black fifth ward, said reparations were the “most appropriate legislative response to the historic practices and the contemporary conditions of the Black community”.
Simmons said that “although many of the anti-Black policies have been outlawed, many remain embedded in policy, including zoning and other government practices. We are in a time in history where this nation more broadly has not only the will and awareness of why reparations is due, but the heart to advance it.”
However, a group has raised concerns over the proposal, claiming that it does not go far enough to be truly called reparations. The group, Evanston Rejects Racist Reparations, posted on Facebook that “historically racist financial institutions like banks, corporations and various individuals” will profit from the move.
The group wants the program to be called something other than reparations and for the city council to come back with direct payments to Black residents. Simmons has dismissed these criticisms, pointing out the council does not have authority over the banking industry. The National African American Reparations Commission, a non-profit civil rights organization, has cited the Evanston program as a model for reparations for the rest of the US.
The US has a spotty records of discussing and distributing reparations in past decade, with most plans falling short or happening on a minor scale. In recent years, however, it has become a wider conversation: last year, Asheville, North Carolina, lawmakers postponed a resolution that would allocate a $1m fund for reparations. The mayor of Providence, Rhode Island, also signed a commitment to the idea for both Black and Indigenous residents.
Anti-regime protesters call for Daw Aung San Suu Kyi's release in February in Yangon. (photo: The Irrawaddy)
Myanmar's Military Junta Launches Corruption Probe of Suu Kyi and President
The Irrawaddy
yanmar’s military regime has launched corruption probes targeting the country’s ousted leaders, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, President U Win Myint, and a series of chief ministers from National League for Democracy (NLD) government.
During a press conference Thursday, the regime’s spokesman, Brigadier General Zaw Min Tun, repeated allegations that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi accepted $600,000 and more than 21 pounds of gold from detained Yangon region chief U Phyo Min Thein during the period between December 2017 and March 2018.
“As it was found that Daw Aung San Suu Kyi personally accepted them, the government’s Anti-Corruption Commission is now probing it,” he said, without elaboration.
He also added that President U Win Myint and first lady Daw Cho Cho are being investigated for allegedly taking bribes from unidentified business people.
State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and President U Win Myint have already been charged by the junta since their arrests following a coup on Feb. 1.
The pair has been held in custody since early February.
Early last month, the junta filed four charges against Daw Aung San Suu Kyi ranging from incitement to using a walkie-talkie without a license to breaching COVID-19 restrictions. The charges carry a total of nine years’ imprisonment upon conviction.
The president was also charged under the Natural Disaster Management Law last month for allegedly breaching COVID-19 restrictions during the election campaign and violating Article 505(b) for incitement early in February.
If found guilty of the alleged corruption, each would face an additional maximum prison sentence of 15 years.
On Thursday, the regime spokesperson also said three detained chief ministers of the NLD government –Dr. Zaw Myint Maung of Mandalay Region, Dr. Myint Naing of Sagaing Region, Dr. Aye Zan of Mon State– are being investigated for corruption. Prior to these latest probes, all of them had been charged with incitement under the article 505 (b) of the penal code.
Following the coup, mass protests against the regime have erupted across the country. People demand the release of their leaders as well as others detained by the junta while denouncing the military’s rule in the country.
The regime has responded to the protests heavy-handedly, killing more than 70 people.
Jess Patterson, coordinator of the Brevard Zoo Sea Turtle Healing Center, with a turtle brought in from the Port St. John, Florida area. (photo: Tim Shortt/Florida Today)
Sea Turtles, Too Weak to Swim, Are Coming Ashore in Florida. Is This an 'Unexplained Mortality Event'?
Tyler Vazquez, USA TODAY
Vazquez writes:
ea turtles along the Florida coast from Jacksonville to Brevard are falling sick and wildlife experts are trying to find out why.
The turtles — primarily Green sea turtles — have been coming ashore from the ocean and lagoons in increasing numbers over the past few weeks. They're being taken to the Brevard Zoo or specialty turtle rehab centers around Florida, according to Shanon Gann with the Brevard Zoo Sea Turtle Healing Center.
"There's not one specific ailment. Most of them are stranding from the ocean and presenting with lethargy and low glucose," Gann said Wednesday. "It's not boat strikes or a parasite."
Dozens of sea turtles too weak to swim have been rescued from just south of Jacksonville to Brevard County over the past few weeks, she said.
Providing enough care and solving the mystery cause of their ailments is providing a challenge to sea turtle experts.
The sea turtles are being given fluids, broad-spectrum antibiotics and vitamins. Blood cultures and tests are also being conducted.
Tuesday alone, nine turtles were taken in by the zoo's healing center after being found stranded along the coast, according to Coordinator Jess Patterson.
"In the grand scheme of things, that's a lot of turtles to come to our facility in just one day," Patterson said. "They're covered in barnacles, algae, dirt, sponges."
Some of the turtles are carrying up to 15% of their total body weight in extra mass on top of being hypoglycemic, which is having low blood sugar, she said.
Gann said the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is distributing the sick sea turtles to sites around Florida to keep clinics in the affected areas from becoming overloaded.
"FWC will gather all information to see if there's an unexplained mortality event," Gann said. "It's most likely something that won't affect the entire population, but will affect this niche along our coast."
Each turtle can have its own co-morbidities and health issues, complicating things further for scientists who want to pinpoint exactly what the common factor is across the affected population, Gann said.
"We've had a few that have died and the rest are hanging in there," she said.
"The biggest thing for us is resources. Yesterday we ran out of the supplies that we use to do blood draws and do laboratory work. It's a burden on all these facilities," Gann said.
Out of the dozens of sites around the state where sea turtles are kept in captivity, 17 also serve as rehabilitation centers and hospitals –including the Brevard Zoo, the University of Florida Whitney Lab for Marine Bioscience in St. Augustine and the Volusia Marine Science Center in Ponce Inlet.
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