05 March 21
The Next Few Days Will Set the Tone for the Month
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It's Live on the HomePage Now: Jonathan Chait | Mike Pence's Blueprint for Permanent Authoritarian Rule
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fter a long period of silence on the subject of the 2020 election, some of which he spent hiding from an insurrectionist mob that was attempting to lynch him, Mike Pence has reemerged. The former vice-president has written an 
Voters at a polling precinct. (photo: Jessica McGowan/Getty Images)
HR 1, an Absolutely Crucial Voting Reform Measure Just Passed the House. What's Next?
Ryan Grim, The Intercept
Grim writes:
n Wednesday night, the House of Representatives passed a sweeping package of voting rights and campaign finance reform that, if enacted, would reshape the structure of American politics, expanding the franchise and diminishing the power of wealthy interests. The bill passed not long before midnight by a margin of 220-210, with every Republican voting no, joined by one Democrat, Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi.
H.R. 1, also known as the For the People Act, creates a national system of automatic voter registration, which is expected to bring millions of new voters to the ballot box, and cracks down on voter suppression tactics. Crucially, it mandates nonpartisan redistricting commissions in order to outlaw gerrymandering. Without passage of the legislation, Republicans are well positioned to retake the House of Representatives in 2022 without persuading a single voter to switch parties or turning out new voters, but simply by gerrymandering in the wake of the Trump administration’s rigged census. For that background and the legislation, listen to our February episode of Deconstructed, which focused on the For the People Act, and read Jon Schwarz’s essay on its importance.
The bill tackles the influence of the superrich on politics by creating a “Freedom From Influence Fund.” For every contribution up to $200 received by a candidate in a primary or general election campaign, the fund matches by six times, turning that $200 into $1,200. The contribution is not eligible for a match, however, if the donor gave more than $1,000 to the candidate, an effort to make sure members of Congress are funded by regular people rather than the rich. No taxpayer money is involved: The matching money is to be funded by a surcharge levied on top of fines doled out to those convicted of white-collar financial crimes. The logic is straightforward: Those abusing the democratic system should pay to fix it.
The bill has strong support among Democrats in the Senate, support that is only growing stronger as Republicans unleash a wave of voter suppression laws — particularly in Arizona and Georgia, where Democrats will be defending new gains in the upcoming midterms. While Republicans across the country support the legislation, their elected representatives in Congress are dead set against it. That means passage requires busting or evading the filibuster. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Oregon, an advocate of drastically reforming the filibuster to return the Senate to a majority-run institution, said that the idea of a democracy reform exception to the filibuster has been discussed if it appears that full repeal is not in the cards. For more on the filibuster’s prognosis, listen to interviews with Merkley and authors Adam Jentleson and Jacob Hacker.
Rioters at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. (photo: Getty Images)
Trump Appointee Arrested in Connection With Capitol Riot
Josh Gerstein, POLITICO
Gerstein writes:
Federico Klein, a former State Department aide, was picked up Thursday on charges stemming from the Jan. 6 takeover of Congress.
he FBI on Thursday arrested Federico Klein, a former State Department aide, on charges related to the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, marking the first known instance of an appointee of President Donald Trump facing criminal prosecution in connection with the attempt to block Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s victory.
Klein, 42, was taken into custody in Virginia, said Samantha Shero, a spokesperson for the FBI’s Washington Field Office. Details on the charges against him were not immediately available.
Klein worked on Trump’s 2016 campaign and was then hired at the State Department. As of last summer, he was listed in a federal directory as serving as a special assistant in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs and was designated as a “Schedule C” political appointee.
Klein worked for a time in the State Department’s Office of Brazilian and Southern Cone Affairs before being transferred to the office that handles Freedom of Information Act requests, according to a former colleague who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
On Trump’s 2016 campaign, Klein — also known as Freddie — worked as a “tech analyst,” according to Federal Election Commission records. He earned $15,000 there, according to a financial disclosure he filed when he joined the State Department. He was paid an additional $5,000 by the campaign in 2017, the FEC records show.
An individual by the same name also worked briefly on Capitol Hill about two decades ago, for the House Small Business Committee and as an intern for Sen. George Allen (R-Va.).
The alleged presence of a Trump political appointee at the riot may tie those events more closely to the president, although there is already ample evidence that many of those charged were inspired by Trump’s false claims about widespread election fraud and by his call for supporters to descend on Washington on Jan. 6 for events that he promised would be “wild.”
Klein’s mother, Cecilia, said in a telephone interview on Thursday evening that she and her son discussed the Jan. 6 events a few weeks ago and that he confirmed he had been in Washington that day.
“As far as I know, he was on the Mall. That’s what he told me,” Cecilia Klein said.
She said she came away from the conversation with the impression that her son had not entered the Capitol, but she could not recall whether he specifically denied that. “I’m not sure he used those words,” she said.
Cecilia Klein, a retired trade official and economist, said she and her son rarely talk politics or discuss Trump because she and her son have starkly different views.
“Fred’s politics burn a little hot,” she said, “but I’ve never known him to violate the law. … While I believe, as he said, he was on the Mall that day, I don’t have any evidence, nor will I ever ask him, unless he tells me, where he was after he was on the Mall.”
Federico Klein served as a Marine in Iraq, his mother said. He held a top-secret clearance from 2014 to 2019, issued by the Defense Department, according to his LinkedIn page.
Before joining the 2016 Trump campaign, Klein worked as a researcher for the conservative Family Research Council and served as a Republican state convention delegate in Virginia, according to his LinkedIn page. He graduated from George Mason University in 2002.
Klein did not respond to voicemail and text messages seeking comment on Thursday.
More than 300 people have now been charged in federal court for events related to the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. The charges in the cases range from misdemeanor offenses, like entering a restricted area, to obstruction of Congress and assault on a police officer with a dangerous weapon.
Undocumented immigrants from El Salvador wait to be deported on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation flight bound for San Salvador. (photo: John Moore/Getty Images)
Supreme Court Makes It Harder for Undocumented Immigrants to Fight Deportation
Nina Totenberg, NPR
Totenberg writes:
he U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday made it more difficult for undocumented immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for a long time to fight deportation. The court's 5-to-3 ruling came in the case of a man who had lived in the U.S. for 25 years but who had used a fake Social Security card to get a job as a janitor.
Clemente Pereida was fined $100 under Nebraska state law after he pleaded no contest to the crime of "attempted criminal impersonation." The lower courts ruled the conviction was enough to trigger his deportation because it was a crime of "moral turpitude" under state law.
That finding, in turn, meant that Pereida was ruled ineligible when he appealed to the attorney general to cancel his deportation because of the impact it would have on his son, a U.S. citizen, and the rest of his family. The attorney general does have such discretion but not if the applicant has been found guilty of a crime of "moral turpitude."
In an opinion written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the Supreme Court said the burden was on Pereida to show that in his case the facts did not amount to moral turpitude, and that he had failed to do that.
The decision rejected Pereida's argument that his crime did not fit into that category, and that if it did, the burden was on the government to prove that.
By putting the burden on Pereida, the court not only made it more difficult for undocumented immigrants to get special dispensations from the attorney general, the court also made it more difficult to fight the grounds for deportation in the first place.
Writing for the three dissenters, Justice Stephen Breyer said that "given the vast number of different state misdemeanors, plea agreements made long ago, cursory state records," and the "imperfect memories" of state officials long departed from their jobs, there is a "real risk of adding time and complexity to immigration proceedings," making them "less fair and less predictable."
Stanford law professor Lucas Guttentag, who served as a senior counselor to the secretary of Homeland Security in the Obama administration, said Thursday's ruling would amount to a "one-way street" making it more likely that undocumented immigrants will be deported for relatively minor state crimes.
Cornell law professor Stephen Yale-Loer agreed. Co-author of a 21-volume treatise on immigration law, Yale-Loer said the court's decision "increases the burden of proof on immigrants in deportation proceedings."
Joining Justice Gorsuch's majority opinion were four of the court's conservatives — Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh.
Joining Breyer's dissent were liberal justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett did not participate in the the decision.
In addition to concerns about COVID safety, workers at Amazon have expressed frustration about impossibly high productivity expectations and are therefore starting to unionize. (photo: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images)
Alabama Amazon Warehouse Workers Speak Out on Union Showdown: "Time for Us to Make a Stand"
CBS News
undreds of thousands of Amazon employees nationwide are watching one of the most significant unionization drives in a generation. Workers at an Amazon warehouse near Birmingham, Alabama are voting on whether to join a retail workers union, and their colleagues around the country are wondering how that will affect them.
In two 12-hour shifts a day, about 5,800 workers at the Bessemer Amazon Fulfillment Center sort, package and ship boxes. They make at least $15 dollars per hour, more than twice the minimum wage. However, some of them told CBS News the company refuses to hear their complaints and frustrations.
"Amazon is treating the people disrespectful," union organizer Michael Foster told CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann. "They're basically telling the people, if you don't want to abide by the way we work, you can go find another job somewhere else."
Foster had been outside the Alabama warehouse during a shift change, where he had been campaigning for votes since October.
According to the union, roughly 85% of the workers at the facility are Black. Most are women. Many complain about grueling work, unsafe conditions and inadequate bathroom and meal breaks.
"We're being treated like we're prisoners who're there to get a job done," said Jennifer Bates, a warehouse employee.
Her colleague Daryl Richardson said his biggest frustrations were "job security" and "respect and safety, wellbeing," adding: "It is time for us to make a stand. It's time for some changes."
"What the community doesn't realize is what goes on behind the curtain," Bates said. "What are the people going through just to make sure we get our packages?"
Frustrated workers contacted the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union.
Their push is supported by celebrities like Danny Glover.
"We need you to vote 'Yes.' You carry on the spirit and tradition in Alabama that has fought against so many obstacles," the actor said.
President Joe Biden also weighed in with a two-minute video message, stating that "Every worker should have a free and fair choice to join a union."
But Amazon is fighting the union drive in Alabama — a right-to-work state.
In a statement, the company told CBS News, "If the union vote passes, it will impact everyone at the site and it's important associates understand what that means for them and their day-to-day life working at Amazon."
Amazon workers Dawn Hoag said she will vote no.
"I have yet to personally encounter anyone who is pro-union," Hoag said. "I do not see a point in paying somebody to do something I am fully capable to do for myself — and that being advocating."
But the union believes these workers need a voice, and that they'll deliver the votes despite long odds.
"If you put enough heart in anything that you do, you can do anything… even in Alabama," Michael Foster said. "We have not been able to organize in Alabama as we wish we could, but things are meant to change."
Voting is currently underway by mail, and will end on March 29. The union believes the vote will be close, and whichever side wins, the loser is likely to challenge the outcome.
Women bearing a photograph of murdered Karla Turcios participate in a protest against femicides in San Salvador, El Salvador. (photo: José Cabezas/Reuters)
Underreported and Unpunished, Femicides in El Salvador Continue
Kristina Zanzinger, SJ Fernandez and Yanxi Liu, NACLA
In one of the most dangerous Latin American countries to be a woman, lockdown measures exposed longstanding challenges in combatting gender violence.
he same day President Nayib Bukele announced a strict lockdown for El Salvador at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, a collective of local women’s organizations launched a hotline to support women confined indoors with their abusers. The country was not prepared for the public health emergency nor for protecting women against violence. “Emergency situations,” the groups noted, always exacerbate “acts of violence against women stemming from existing inequalities.” By early June, the feminist organization Colectiva Feminista para el Desarrollo Local had documented 26 femicides during the lockdown.
In recent years, El Salvador has reported high rates of domestic violence and epidemic rates of femicide, the intentional killing of a woman or girl based on her gender identity. A 2017 survey found that 67 percent of Salvadoran women had experienced some form of violence in their lives, and in 2019, the country had one of the highest femicide rates in Latin America, second only to Honduras. Although El Salvador passed a gender violence law in 2011, establishing sentences of 20 to 50 years for femicide, acknowledging and prosecuting these cases remains arduous. The pandemic has further exposed these challenges, including by exacerbating structural barriers to reporting gender-based violence. Local human rights lawyers and feminist activists have been fighting to address these limitations by expanding support systems for victims of domestic violence.
Salvadoran law defines femicide as the killing of a woman with “motives of hatred or contempt for her condition as a woman.” Some scholars have proposed the term feminicide, rather than femicide, to underline the role of state negligence in these crimes and the intersection of power dynamics and cultural and socioeconomic factors.
In El Salvador and elsewhere, most femicides happen within the context of domestic violence, and structural machismo and the societal normalization of gender-based violence perpetuate both abuses and impunity. Campaigns and events organized by groups like Colectiva Feminista aim to educate women on their human rights, improve their sense of agency and self-worth, and dismantle the normalization of violence. However, underreporting of domestic violence is still an issue.
“Domestic violence is the beginning [of feminicide] since women suffer domestic violence in silence,” explains human rights attorney Arnau Baulenas of the Instituto de Derechos Humanos de la Universidad Centroamericana (IDHUCA) in San Salvador. And according to Marshall University Latin America history professor Chris White, in El Salvador, a geographically small country with a high-density population, the normalization of violence is also shaped by a strong historical memory of civil war-era violence.
“Impunity Means More Violence”
Calling attention to the growing irregularity of resources available for women facing violence in 2020, Colectiva Feminista partnered with the abortion decriminalization organization Agrupación Ciudadana para la Despenalización del Aborto as well as the women’s human rights group Red Salvadoreña de Mujeres Defensoras de Derechos Humanos to create a hotline to provide psychological and legal support. The support line responds to an increased need since the start of the pandemic for remote resources for victims, their families, and others hoping to report instances of gender-based violence or gain information about preventative actions. Many callers are from family members and partners seeking legal assistance to press charges against their abusive counterparts, explains activist and lawyer Laura Moran.
According to Moran, the Colectiva Feminista received more gender-based violence cases in the first six months of the pandemic than it did during all of 2019. Reports to the police also increased during lockdown. However, uneven awareness among public officials about the problem, combined with normalization, has created significant barriers to building substantial legal services to protect victims of abuse.
Potential for revictimization by police who uphold patriarchal norms, such as the idea that domestic violence is a family matter, is one possible deterrent to reporting abuse. Such barriers to reporting, a lack of political will to dedicate resources to combatting feminicide, and structural problems in the judicial system also translate into a lack of justice for victims. Activists have often pointed out the hypocrisy of El Salvador's justice system criminalizing women for having abortions—or stillbirths or miscarriages in many cases—while failing to pursue prosecutions for femicides.
According to Baulenas, prosecutions are often overshadowed by personal and cultural biases against victims that color cases with patriarchal and machista assumptions. These biases contribute to impunity for gender-based crimes, and it can also retraumatize survivors who choose to report their abuse. “Impunity means more violence,” Baulenas explains, underlining a cycle of inaction that fuels further underreporting. “The system needs to be fixed and authority figures need reeducation,” he adds.
For Moran, raising awareness is an important first step in the broader ideological and cultural transformation required to meaningfully combat femicide and gender-based violence at the root. In the immediate term, on-the-ground responses like the Colectiva Feminista’s monitoring and the domestic violence hotline aim to create visibility for victims and provide support. They hope that breaking down the normalization of violence will in turn allow women to speak up about their abuse and seek help.
When Abuse Goes Unnoticed
President Nayib Bukele has smugly said that feminist groups should be “happy” with how rates of killings of women have fallen under his government. Although official data indicate that feminicide rates have declined since 2016, human rights groups highlight that other forms of violence against women, such as disappearances, have increased.
This dynamic recalls another period with a similar trend. In 2012, the Salvadoran government struck a deal with gangs to establish a ceasefire between the Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18 in hopes of lowering homicides. As a result of the truce, the numbers of killings and feminicides did go down. According to a 2013 report by the international organization Interpeace, “immediately after the truce was agreed upon, homicide rates ostensibly decreased: 14 to 17 homicides a day dropped to an average of 5.5 deaths a day…In parallel, there was also a decrease in femicides.”
Despite the controversy surrounding the truce—namely the government’s lack of transparency in secretive negotiations—this reduction in killings was “one of the positive results,” a report by the Red Feminista Frente a la Violencia contra las Mujeres notes. “However,” the report adds, “it is necessary to deepen the analysis of the causes behind this decrease in violent deaths coupled with an increase in the number of acts of other forms of violence against women…because femicides are a culmination in a continuum of violence.” The report also highlights that among the killings of women reported, most were carried out with “extreme cruelty,” and raises alarm that the generalized nature of this phenomenon has not received adequate attention. “The viciousness, hate, [and] torture go unnoticed,” it states.
Research has shown that it is not simply gang members inflicting violence against women; intimate partner violence generally is an important factor in and potential precursor to feminicide. Yet the country still centers tackling gang violence within its discourse as a tactic to counter high rates of feminicide. Focusing narrowly on so-called iron fist policies—heavy handed crackdowns resulting in mass arrests and incarceration of alleged gang members—not only fails to remedy root problems but also may pull resources away from developing sustainable policies to protect women from domestic violence. Similarly, hate crimes against trans people and other members of the LGBTQI+ community is also a pressing issue that demands a targeted response beyond strategies that claim to address generalized violence.
Citing statistics from the attorney general’s office, Ormusa, a local nonprofit organization promoting women's rights, reports that 130 women were murdered in 2020; this is a decrease from 238 in 2019. However, Baulenas warns people to be wary of government data because it could be motivated by electoral interests, such as the recent midterm elections, in which Bukele’s party won a majority. The decrease in femicide could reflect the fact that the state has not put enough resources into adequately investigating feminicide, especially considering that statistics show that other forms of violence against women have increased. According to Ormusa’s monitoring, cases of domestic violence in 2020 totaled 1,245, an increase from 1,172 cases in 2019. Moreover, feminicide statistics fail to account for the enforced disappearances of women and girls, and missing persons cases also raise questions about the possible underreporting of feminicide.
The “Other Underreported Pandemic”
Achieving a femicide conviction is difficult for two reasons, Baulenas says. First, there must be proof of an intimate relationship between the victim and perpetrator, which is difficult to prove. Second, many judges base their verdicts on personal biases, not an adherence to international law and treaties such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Inter-American Convention on the Prevention, Punishment, and Eradication of Violence Against Women, also known as the Belém do Pará Convention. There is no guarantee that the appropriate laws will be applied every time. As a result, sometimes cases brought to trial as femicides are not tried as such, leading to impunity for this particular crime, Baulenas explains.
According to an investigation by Salvadoran media outlet El Faro, out of 3,000 women killed between 2012 and 2019, only 8.6 percent of cases resulted in a femicide prosecution. “If they weren’t killed for being women, why were they killed?” asked journalists Valeria Guzmán and Gabriela Cáceres. But their investigation found that “it’s almost impossible to give an answer in a country where more than half of cases go unpunished.” Their piece dubbed femicide the “other underreported pandemic.”
At a minimum, collaboration between various sectors is required to confront this complex problem. The economic and daily disturbances of Covid-19 have exacerbated issues of gender-based violence, which is a risk factor for femicide. Femicide’s place in these cycles of violence must be acknowledged to create better potential for intervention and prevention. Awareness is important, but only a first step.
Judge Amy Coney Barrett talks with Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas during her ceremonial swearing-in ceremony to be a U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice. (photo: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
Barrett Authors First US Supreme Court Ruling, a Loss for Environmentalists
Lawrence Hurley, Reuters
Hurley writes:
ustice Amy Coney Barrett on Thursday authored her first ruling since joining the U.S. Supreme Court in October - a decision that handed a defeat to an environmental group that had sought access to government documents.
In the 7-2 ruling, the justices sided with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, thwarting the Sierra Club's bid to obtain documents concerning a regulation finalized in 2014 relating to power plants. Barrett and the court's other five conservative justices were joined by liberal Justice Elena Kagan in the majority, with liberals Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor in dissent.
The Senate approved Barrett for a lifetime job on the top U.S. judicial body on Oct. 26 after a contentious and accelerated confirmation process in the weeks before the Nov. 3 presidential election. She is one of three justices appointed by Republican former President Donald Trump and she replaced liberal Justice Ruther Bader Ginsburg, who died on Sept. 18.
Trump touted Barrett's appointment during campaign rallies ahead of the election, which he lost to Democratic President Joe Biden. Her swift confirmation by the Senate, which at the time was controlled by Trump's fellow Republicans but is now led by the Democrats, moved the court further to the right and deprived Biden of an opportunity to replace Ginsburg with a liberal successor.
The ruling in the Sierra Club case limited the scope of U.S. agency documents that would be subject to a federal law called the Freedom of Information Act, which lets people request certain government materials.
The group wanted access to internal documents concerning the Fish and Wildlife Service's conclusion that a proposed environmental regulation for cooling water intake structures that are used by power plants and other industrial facilities would not adversely affect endangered species, including fish, turtles and shellfish.
The agency initially found in 2013 that the regulation would put the species in jeopardy but its final recommendation to the Environmental Protection Agency in 2014 made the opposite conclusion.
Writing for the court, Barrett said the 2013 draft documents were protected from disclosure because "they reflect a preliminary view - not a final decision - about the likely effect of the EPA's proposed rule on endangered species."
A federal judge in California ruled in 2017 that 11 documents had to be disclosed. Trump's administration appealed and the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2018 ruled partly for the government but still found that nine documents had to be released.
After the ruling, Sierra Club lawyer Elena Saxonhouse said the documents "were meant to - and did - determine subsequent agency actions" and therefore should have been disclosed.
"We're encouraged by the Supreme Court's affirmation that courts must inquire into the specific context of draft documents before allowing agencies to withhold them from the public," Saxonhouse added.
The case was argued the day before the election. It marked Barrett's first arguments as a justice. She previously served on a lower federal appeals court and as a legal scholar at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.
So far, Barrett's biggest impact on the court came when she provided the decisive vote in favor of religious entities challenging COVID-19 restrictions in New York.
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