06 January 21
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Democrats Move Closer to Senate Control as Counting Continues in Georgia
ALSO SEE: Warnock Wins Georgia Runoff, Ossoff Widens Lead
Deirdre Walsh and Kelsey Snell, NPR
Excerpt: "Democrats moved one victory closer to exceedingly narrow control of the Senate on Wednesday after winning one runoff election in Georgia and remaining ahead as votes continue to be counted in another."
Democratic candidate Raphael Warnock, a pastor from Atlanta, defeated GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler after a bitter campaign. Warnock becomes the first Black Democrat elected to the Senate from a Southern state.
The win brings Democrats to 49 seats in the Senate with one race remaining. If Jon Ossoff, a 33-year-old Democrat challenging Republican David Perdue, holds his early Wednesday lead, the Senate will be in a 50-50 tie. Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would be the tiebreaker, giving Democrats control of the House, Senate and White House for the first time since 2011.
Ossoff's narrow lead — about 16,000 votes early Wednesday — left the race too close to call despite he and Warnock campaigning together. If his lead holds, Ossoff will become the youngest sitting senator and the first Jewish senator from Georgia. Although the race hasn't yet been called, Ossoff claimed victory Wednesday morning.
"It is with humility that I thank the people of Georgia for electing me to serve you in the United States Senate," he said.
Perdue has not conceded.
Impact on Biden agenda
Control of the Senate significantly changes what Biden can do, but most importantly, his party would now be able to set the legislative agenda. Democrats failed to make the kind of gains in Senate races in November that many had forecast, with GOP incumbents staving off strong challenges in several states. But with narrow control, they will wield the gavels for Senate committees, call hearings, and decide which items get top priority.
If Ossoff also wins, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York is expected to replace GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell as majority leader and will determine which bills come to the floor for votes.
The ambitious proposals addressing climate change and health care and other domestic priorities touted by Biden and Harris would be difficult, if impossible, to advance with more moderate Democrats — especially those facing competitive 2022 midterm reelection campaigns — reluctant to sign onto partisan proposals. The much smaller than anticipated House Democratic majority compounds the challenge for the party.
Instead, Biden would need to consider which domestic priorities can get bipartisan support since Senate rules now require anything to get 60 votes to advance. The president-elect has already indicated that additional coronavirus relief will be his first priority, but he has also said he plans to unveil an infrastructure plan that could get support from Republicans.
Biden Cabinet nominees would fare better. It's unclear with the short time between setting up committees and negotiating staff arrangements in the narrowly split chamber what that would mean for how quickly confirmation hearings and floor votes can happen with just two weeks before the inauguration.
Return of the bipartisan gangs
After months of stalemate over the size and scope of a coronavirus relief package in the closing weeks of the last Congress, a group of centrists from both parties, led by West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin and Maine Republican Susan Collins, unveiled a $900 billion compromise plan that became the basis for the legislation that ultimately was approved by the House and Senate and signed by the president.
Manchin has said he hopes that model can translate into efforts in 2021.
Other Republican moderates such as Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska who helped on the COVID-19 aid package could also serve as powerful players if they decide to work across the aisle.
Progressives push for Senate rules changes
Liberal Democrats have pressed to get rid of the legislative filibuster so that they can pass major health care or environmental bills with a simple majority.
Biden has sidestepped questions about whether he supports doing away with keeping the 60-vote threshold, but several top Senate Democrats have signaled that they back changing a rule that many of them once insisted was essential to the institution. If Ossoff wins, there will be intense pressure on Biden and Democratic leaders to show they can pass some bills with GOP support, but if Senate Republicans stay largely unified to thwart the new administration's agenda, calls to eliminate the filibuster will increase.
Manchin has publicly said he will oppose any effort to change the rules, and he will have outsized influence in the closely divided chamber.
Jacob Blake in his hospital bed. (photo: CNN)
Kenosha WI Officer Who Shot Jacob Blake Will Not Be Charged
Brakkton Booker, NPR
Booker writes: "A Wisconsin prosecutor announced that no charges will be brought against the white Kenosha police officer who shot Jacob Blake, a Black man, several times at close range in August."
"It is my decision now, that I announce today before you that no Kenosha law enforcement officer in this case will be charged with any criminal offense," Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley said during a Tuesday afternoon press conference.
Kenosha police Officer Rusten Sheskey, who is white, shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back after Blake slowly walked away from officers and toward the driver's side of a parked vehicle. He opened the door and leaned inside.
Investigators later said a knife was recovered from the floorboard of the driver's side.
Blake was left paralyzed by the shooting.
Graveley also said no charges would be filed against Blake over his role in the encounter.
Civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump expressed disappointment in the district attorney's decision not to bring charges against officers, tweeting it "failed not only Jacob and his family but the community that protested and demanded justice."
"This isn't the news we hoped for, but our work is not done and hope is not lost," Crump added. "We must broaden the fight for justice on behalf of Jacob Blake and the countless other Black victims of racial injustice and police brutality."
The charging decision announcement comes a day after Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers authorized the mobilization of the state's National Guard. The move was in anticipation of another potential round of unrest once a charging decision was announced.
Evers, a Democrat, said in a statement Monday that local authorities requested the assistance. About 500 Wisconsin National Guard troops were called to active duty this week to assist local law enforcement.
"We are continuing to work with our local partners in the Kenosha area to ensure they have the state support they need, just as we have in the past," Evers said.
"Our members of the National Guard will be on hand to support local first responders, ensure Kenoshans are able to assemble safely, and to protect critical infrastructure as necessary," he added.
The activation of the Wisconsin Guard also came on the heels of Kenosha Mayor John Antaramian and police Chief Daniel Miskinis announcing what they called "precautionary community safety measures" designed to keep the public and demonstrators safe and guard against "unlawful activity."
Some of the safety protocols city officials are considering include a designation of demonstration space, curbing some city bus routes, road closures, protective fencing and a curfew.
"We want justice and healing for Jacob Blake, the Blake family, and our Kenosha community," said Tanya McLean, executive director of the grassroots organization Leaders of Kenosha, which renewed calls Monday for Sheskey to be arrested and face criminal charges.
"Officer Sheskey fired seven shots into an unarmed man's back, on a block where our children walk to school and our families go to church," she continued, according to Wisconsin Public Radio. "All of us — Black, white, brown, native and newcomer — deserve to be safe in our own neighborhoods, and that means holding police officers accountable when they brutalize us."
The U.S. Justice Department said a civil rights investigation related to Blake's shooting continues, along with "investigations into the arson, rioting, and other violent crimes that occurred in Kenosha in August 2020." The statement said officials "urged everyone to act peacefully and abide by the law."
Blake's shooting took place nearly three months after viral video was posted to social media capturing the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. That shooting also triggered widespread demonstrations in Minnesota and throughout the country as protesters called for an end to social injustice and for police reform.
Days after the Blake shooting and amid ongoing unrest in Kenosha, an Antioch, Ill., minor was captured on video Aug. 25 armed with a long gun when he allegedly shot three men: Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum, who were killed, and Gaige Grosskreutz, who was seriously wounded.
The suspect, Kyle Rittenhouse, is free on $2 million bail and faces several charges, including first-degree intentional homicide and attempted first-degree intentional homicide.
Earlier on Tuesday Rittenhouse pleaded not guilty to all the charges he's facing.
Police officers deploy pepper spray to push back a group of pro-Trump protesters that tried to push through their lines into Black Lives Matter Plaza on January 5, 2021 in Washington, DC. (photo: Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
Pro-Trump Protesters, DC Police Clash Near White House
Dominick Mastrangelo, The Hill
Mastrangelo writes: "Police in Washington, D.C. clashed with protesters late Tuesday night during a demonstration in support of President Trump near the White House."
Police said they made six arrests as of 9 p.m., NBC News reported, charging several individuals with multiple offenses including carrying firearms without a license, possession of unregistered ammunition and possession of an unregistered firearm. Some demonstrators were also charged with assaulting a police officer, the network reported.
Photos and videos taken near the city's newly minted Black Lives Matter plaza show police using pepper spray on demonstrators, some of whom are seen shoving officers and screaming at them.
Several people appeared to be injured or bleeding as a result of the clash just north of the White House grounds.
Hundreds gathered for an event dubbed "March for Trump/Save America" earlier in the day, with thousands more expected to gather near the Capitol on Wednesday ahead of Congress's counting of the Electoral College vote.
D.C. police and federal authorities have said in recent days they are monitoring the presence of extremist groups among the crowds expected to attend demonstrations in the nation's capital this week. The National Guard has been deployed in the district as a precaution.
Earlier in the week, the leader of the Proud Boys, an extremist hate group, was arrested by D.C. police and charged with vandalism of a historically Black church in the city during an earlier protest.
Migrants housed at the Otero County Processing Center walk through the yard in October 2019. (photo: Mark Lambie/El Paso Times/USA Today Network)
How ICE Escapes Detention Center Oversight
Ryan Devereaux, The Intercept
Devereaux writes: "Complaints from more than 150 people locked in a for-profit immigration jail in New Mexico call ICE's inspection process into doubt."
he people locked inside the for-profit detention center spoke to journalists and advocates. They staged protests and hunger strikes. They wanted the world to know that inside the Otero County Processing Center in Chaparral, New Mexico, due process was a fiction and degradation was the norm. None of it seemed to work. So in the fall of 2019, they escalated their tactics — this time threatening mass suicide.
Four months later, in January 2020, a team of inspectors working for the Nakamoto Group, the company that the government pays to inspect its immigration jails, arrived on the scene. The group describes itself as a “small, disadvantaged, minority woman-owned business” based out of Jefferson, Maryland — “Are you ready for the Prison Rape Elimination Act Standards? Nakamoto is!” its website reads. Prior to the team’s arrival, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement created a by-the-numbers summary of the situation at Otero, noting that the people locked inside had filed 257 grievances in the preceding year and been accused of 301 disciplinary infractions. Nakamoto’s summary of its inspection offered no indications of serious conflict on the inside, let alone the kind of conditions that would prompt multiple people to deprive themselves of food or consider suicide.
“Without exception, detainees stated that they felt safe at the facility,” the inspectors reported, after conducting “no less than” 100 interviews. Run by Management and Training Corporation, or MTC, a private prison company out of Utah, the facility was described as “clean and orderly” with a “relaxed” atmosphere that offered “no areas of concern or significant observations.” The private immigration jail was found to have met its government regulated standards, just as it had the year before, when the protests first kicked off.
The threat of mass suicide notwithstanding, none of this was terribly unusual. Inside the nation’s sprawling immigrant detention apparatus, hunger strikes and protests are common, as are contracted inspections that routinely give a stamp of approval to facilities accused of fostering dangerous and dehumanizing conditions — as of 2018, Nakamoto was conducting roughly 100 facility inspections a year. A new report by advocates focused on the Otero facility argues that this is an example of “performative compliance,” a process in which ostensible oversight bodies undermine their own stated purpose.
“There is a larger concern beyond just failing to document problems,” reads the report, published Tuesday by Advocate Visitors with Immigrants in Detention and Innovation Law Lab. “The inspections process actively legitimizes the detention system and conceals its inherent problems, which upholds a profitable industry for incarcerating immigrants.” Scholars have documented patterns of performative compliance in public-private sector partnerships “where different organizational forces seek to give the illusion that they are conforming to the ‘agreed’ rules of delivery,” the report said, adding, “The theater of compliance via regulation that arises in these public-private partnerships guarantees that any outcomes that could affect the profitability of the partnership are concealed.”
This is precisely what’s happening at Otero, the report claimed, and in the immigration detention system more broadly. The advocates based their conclusions on conversations with more than 200 people locked inside Otero from August 2019 to June 2020. More than 150 individuals who took part in those conversations raised concerns about their experience of the U.S. immigration system. Far from being “safe” and “relaxed,” the picture of Otero that emerged from the 259 complaints detailed in the report pointed to a profoundly dehumanizing place. From medical concerns to a lack of access to the legal system, interviewees described conditions that felt aimed at wearing people down and seemed to directly undermine the stated justification for their detention.
MTC pushed back on several of the claims made in Tuesday’s report, telling The Intercept in an email, “There’s nothing more important to us than the safety and well-being of our employees and those in our care” and that MTC staff “treat those in their care with dignity, respect, and the highest level of professionalism.” The company added that staff at the Otero facility “strictly follow” ICE detention standards and that individuals in detention “have multiple avenues to address any issues they might have,” including speaking to MTC staff or ICE officials, or filing official grievances.
In a statement, ICE spokesperson Leticia Zamarripa said the agency is “firmly committed to the safety and welfare of all those in its custody, and it provides several levels of oversight in order to ensure that detainees in ICE custody reside in safe, secure and humane environments and under appropriate conditions of confinement.” Zamarripa did not comment on the allegations in the report, stating that the agency was unable to do so “without the specific details, including the names and signed privacy-waiver forms of the current or former detainees who have made these allegations.” The Nakamoto Group declined to comment.
“The kinds of concerns that are being raised by the people who were interviewed by the advocacy groups are very familiar to those of us who monitor what’s happening across ICE’s detention system year after year,” said César Cuauhtémoc García Hernández, a law professor at the University of Denver and the author of “Migrating to Prison: America’s Obsession with Locking Up Immigrants.” There will always be a degree of variation between individual facilities, García Hernández told The Intercept, “but the end result is concerns about medical care, concerns about access to counsel, and concerns about the treatment that people are receiving inside of these facilities.” Those concerns each raise their own important legal questions, he added, such as whether the due process rights of people in detention are meaningfully respected, “but the bigger concern is just the overriding failure of the Department of Homeland Security to install an adequate oversight mechanism.”
“The department’s own inspector general has found that the existing oversight mechanisms are poorly equipped to actually ensure that problems are identified and then addressed,” García Hernández noted. While it was no surprise that those concerns went unaddressed in the era of President Donald Trump, he said, “the reality is that these problems go back to the Obama years.”
Medical issues were far and away the No. 1 category of complaint cited in Tuesday’s report, comprising more than two-thirds of the detention conditions concerns raised. Nakamoto, by contrast, made no mention of medical issues as an area of concern in its summary of its 2020 inspection.
Four asylum-seekers at Otero told advocates they were denied medical treatment for injuries they sustained while fleeing their home countries or as a result of being forced to stay in Mexico under the Migrant Protection Protocols program. Otherwise known as “Remain in Mexico” or MPP, the Trump-era program has forced tens of thousands of asylum-seekers to wait out their cases in Mexico, leading to bottlenecks in some of the border’s most dangerous cities and widespread kidnappings, extortion, and violence against migrants.
Multiple interviewees reported that denial of prescribed medication was also a problem at Otero, including for conditions such as HIV and heart disease. In 2019, Johana Medina León, a transgender woman seeking asylum, died after what her family claimed was a denial of medical care at Otero. Though billed as an all-male facility, Otero also houses transgender women with men, creating a host of other serious problems cited in the report, including harassment and abuse, which, according to those inside, can feel inescapable. “Individuals who complained about the abuse and harassment were retaliated against with solitary confinement,” the report said.
MTC flatly denied that access to medical care was a problem at Otero. “All new detainees receive a medical evaluation, and any medical concerns are immediately addressed. Detainees can request to be seen by a member of our medical team at any time,” the private prison corporation said. “The allegation that we denied anyone medical care is wrong. We have a team of medical professionals, including doctors, nurses, and dentists who provide a variety of medical services whenever needed. If an individual requires medical services beyond what the medical team can provide at the facility, they are transported to a local hospital to address their medical needs.” The company also denied all allegations of retaliation at the facility, stating: “We work directly with ICE to house each detainee in the safest and most appropriate housing environment. Retaliation has never been and will never be a tactic used by any of our staff.”
For three individuals cited in the report, the road to Otero began with a series of ICE raids in Albuquerque, New Mexico, launched as part of the Trump administration’s politicized crackdown on so-called sanctuary cities. For many others, it started with one of the government’s infamous hieleras. Spanish for icebox, the border holding cells fall under the authority of U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Notorious for their cold temperatures and humiliating absence of privacy, the cells are intentionally designed without beds and are not meant to serve as overnight holding facilities — yet that’s routinely how they are used.
On average, individuals cited in the report spent two weeks in a hielera before being processed to another location, though one individual described being kept in one of the cells for nearly two months. Most described sleeping on the floor with nothing more than a mylar blanket. “One individual, held in a hielera for 26 days reported being held with 127 individuals in a space with a capacity for 44. Two other individuals reported being held with 100 other individuals,” the report said. With several individuals reporting that they were unable to brush their teeth for weeks on end, the report characterized the government’s use of hieleras as a form of “‘clean torture,’ which causes physical harm but leaves no immediately-visible, physical mark.”
Because people in ICE detention are dealing with civil immigration offenses rather than criminal convictions, their lockup is the result of an active decision on the part of the government — it is not obligatory. ICE insists this is neither punishment nor incarceration, but instead an administrative action taken to ensure that the detained have their cases adjudicated. Many of the people locked in Otero, however, reported an absence of contact with their deportation officer as an ongoing problem. In fact, it was one of the principle reasons that a group of mostly Cuban men calling themselves los plantados began a series of protests that led to the threats of mass suicide in 2019. Their tactics included planting themselves in a location and refusing to move until they were able to speak to their deportation officer.
“ICE officials and MTC staff first responded to the protests with harassment and physical force. Only after threats, pepper spray, and disruptive searches in which detained individuals’ personal belongings, including court documents, were taken did [deportation officers] agree to meet with the plantados,” the report said. “When they did finally meet, ICE brought in additional armed personnel who wore tactical gear and stood menacingly near the detained protestors.”
MTC told The Intercept it had no knowledge of the events in question. “We are not aware of any incident at the facility that required the use of force or any incident that even resembles the allegations made in this statement,” the company said. “The safety of our staff and detainees is our top priority.”
Interviewees cited in the report claimed unidentified Homeland Security personnel would sometime pressure people to sign their own deportation orders before seeing a judge and described “entire dorms of persons” being “told to sign deportation paperwork en masse … without having the documents properly explained.” The advocates also documented cases of ICE detaining people for up to 90 days before initiating proceedings in immigration court. “Recalling that the alleged purpose of ICE detention is to ensure that individuals are present for their hearing and removal if so ordered by an immigration judge, these delays make no sense,” the report noted.
Several people locked in Otero said MTC staff often made threats of physical harm or the use solitary confinement and deprived people of food for failing to sit where they were told in the lunchroom. They described being “treated like animals” and targeted with “psychological abuse.” MTC said its staff are “trained to treat each person in our care with respect and dignity” and added that “all detainees are given three meals a day and have access to medical and dental care, daily recreation and other activities including educational classes, and legal resources to help them with their cases.”
The company’s assertions stand in direct contradiction to the claims of individuals cited in Tuesday’s report. Fear of retaliation was a “pervasive and often overwhelming barrier to hearing or receiving the accounts of individuals detained regarding the violence and abuse they face,” the report said. Six individuals said they were placed in solitary confinement for reasons ranging from participating in a sit-in to contracting Covid-19. “One of the individuals was among the leaders of the 2019 OCPC plantados,” the report said. “Upon being put into solitary confinement after an action, this individual slit his wrists.”
MTC claimed that “the use of special housing units” — prison-speak for solitary confinement — “is a management tool used in rare cases for the safety of staff and detainees and for the overall safety of the facility.” The private prison company again said it “strictly” follows ICE detention standards and added that “anytime special housing is used, it is approved by ICE, and each case is reviewed weekly to determine whether the use of special housing is still necessary.”
Often, the people locked in Otero were already coping with heavy psychological trauma. “All of the individuals that EPIC spoke to who were subjected to MPP and were willing to speak about it reported surviving violent assaults or developing a medical condition due to stress,” the report said, adding that “after being placed in MPP, one individual’s wife was raped while he was held at gunpoint.” The man was among a group of 10 individuals who reported being separated from their children at the border. Each of the separations occurred well after the president signed an executive order supposedly ending his administration’s “zero tolerance” policy. “Several individuals indicated that they were deeply depressed due to being separated from their families, and from prolonged detention,” the report noted. Advocates spoke to three individuals who attempted to take their own life at Otero. “A fourth individual indicated they were seriously considering suicide,” the report said. “All four of these individuals were seeking asylum.”
In 2018, the Office of Inspector General for the Department of Homeland Security, the federal watchdog responsible for providing oversight of ICE, published a blistering report laying out the many ways in which inspections of immigration detention centers — both by Nakamoto and by ICE’s Office of Detention Oversight, or ODO — fail in their mission.
With small teams of inspectors tasked with checking adherence to dozens of federal standards for immigration detention in brief visits to scores of facilities across the country each year, the IG’s office found that Nakamoto’s inspection scope was “too broad,” that ICE’s guidance on procedures was “unclear,” and that Nakamoto’s inspection processes were “not consistently thorough,” resulting in inspections that “do not fully examine actual conditions or identify all compliance deficiencies.” The report found that the interviews Nakamoto conducts were in fact “brief, mostly group conversations with detainees in their detention dorms or in common areas in the presence of detention facility personnel, generally asking four or five basic questions about treatment, food, medical needs, and opportunities for recreation.” Investigators spoke to “several” ICE employees who said that Nakamoto inspectors “breeze by the standards” and do not “have enough time to see if the [facility] is actually implementing the policies.” Employees described the inspections as “very, very, very difficult to fail” and “useless.”
The IG’s office found that the ODO inspections were more effective, but noted that they “are too infrequent to ensure the facilities implement all corrections” and that “ICE does not adequately follow up on identified deficiencies or systematically hold facilities accountable for correcting deficiencies, which further diminishes the usefulness of both Nakamoto and ODO inspections.”
Though the apparently surface-level nature of Nakamoto’s inspections may help to explain why there is such a wide gap between the trauma captured in Tuesday’s report and the approval Nakamoto gave to Otero in 2020, the question remains why the government continues to rely on a demonstrably failed oversight process in a system where human lives are at stake.
García Hernández argues that the fault lies with the Department of Homeland Security and the administrations that have hired Nakamoto, which has received contracts from ICE since 2007. “That’s Trump, but that’s also Obama,” he said. “They’re apparently disinterested in ensuring that when problems are identified that they’re taken seriously. And so Nakamoto has absolutely no reason to think that the Department of Homeland Security or the administration, whichever that is, is all that concerned about the quality of life inside of these facilities.” He added, “My concern is that under a Biden administration we will be repeating similar conversations.”
President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to “end for-profit detention centers” and vowed that his administration “will ensure that facilities that temporarily house migrants seeking asylum are held to the highest standards of care and prioritize the safety and dignity of families above all.” He has also promised to “end prolonged detention” and “reinvest” in programs that offer alternatives to detention. The incoming president has not offered an explanation as to why the asylum-seeking migrants he refers to, as well as other non-asylum-seeking immigrants, should be detained at all, and he has not articulated how his process for holding ICE to the highest standards possible will differ from the present system. Biden’s transition team declined to make any of the president-elect’s immigration advisers available for comment.
Reform will not fix the problems in the country’s immigrant detention centers, the authors of Tuesday’s report argued. ICE’s inspection regime itself was a product of reformist thinking, the report said, and it has produced a cycle of performative compliance “that not only fails to identify and expose problems, but forms part of a system that conceals those problems.” Citing the large body of court record evidence showing that an extremely high percentage of immigrants and asylum-seekers do in fact attend their hearings in the U.S. — among non-detained asylum-seekers, 99 out of 100, according to one 2019 study — the report argued that the stated justification for ongoing immigrant detention is hollow.
“This reform-oriented approach to systemic problems ends up justifying and sustaining the troubling situations that evoke the need for reforms in the first place,” the report said. “ICE detention, the use of CBP temporary holding facilities, and the practice of returning immigrants to Mexico to await a hearing should be abolished.”
President Trump's supporters gather Tuesday on the steps at the Pennsylvania state Capitol in Harrisburg. (photo: Laurence Kesterson/AP)
In Explosive Debate, Pennsylvania GOP Refuses to Swear in Reelected Democratic Senator
CBS News
Excerpt: "A bitter dispute broke out on the floor of the Pennsylvania Senate on Tuesday when majority Republicans blocked a Democratic incumbent from being sworn in because his GOP challenger has disputed the razor-thin election results."
Lawmakers were back in the Capitol for swearing-in day, facing a still-raging pandemic and a massive budget gap. Republicans hold large majorities in both chambers.
The Senate quickly dissolved into chaos over the status of Democratic Senator Jim Brewster of Allegheny County.
Democrats in the Senate began protesting — in some cases, shouting — after the GOP refused to seat Brewster, whose election was certified by the state but is being contested by his Republican challenger, Nicole Ziccarelli.
Republicans then voted on a motion to remove Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman, a Democrat, as the presiding officer, after Fetterman insisted that Brewster be seated with the other senators. They then voted through another motion to recognize the election in every Senate contest, except for Brewster's.
Republicans have not said how long they will take to review Ziccarelli's election challenge before voting on it, or how long the GOP majority is willing to leave the seat vacant. The open seat does not affect the balance of power in the Senate, where Republicans hold 28 of 50 seats.
When it came time for newly elected and reelected Senate Democrats to take the oath of office, Brewster stepped aside to defuse what had been shaping up as a standoff.
The state House begins the session with 113 Republican seats and 90 Democratic, although one of those GOP districts is vacant because of the death on Saturday of Westmoreland County Representative Mike Reese. The House held a brief condolence ceremony for Reese.
The House swore in its members in four groups to limit potential coronavirus exposure. Each chamber's operating rules will also be considered, and House Democrats want mask wearing to be mandatory during floor sessions and committee meetings.
Only a few House Republicans did not wear masks to take their oath of office.
Republican draft rules do not address the mask issue, which could be taken up by a bipartisan group of House leaders that manages chamber operations.
The Senate voted 31-18, largely on party lines, to make Centre County Republican Senator Jake Corman its presiding officer, president pro tempore. The House is expected to elect Lancaster County Republican Representative Bryan Cutler as speaker.
The session brings the first woman to be majority leader in the Senate, Republican Sen. Kim Ward of Westmoreland County, and the first woman and first African American to be a floor leader in the House, Minority Leader Joanna McClinton, a Democrat from Philadelphia.
Legislators this year will have to figure out how to redraw congressional district lines based on new census results that are expected to cut one member of Congress from Pennsylvania's 18-member delegation.
Later this year, the four caucus leaders will also begin redrawing General Assembly lines with participation from a fifth member they can select. If they remain deadlocked on the fifth member, as is likely, the Democratic-majority state Supreme Court will chose the tie-breaking member for them.
Founders of LasTesis group, Chile, 2020. (photo: Twitter/AtRiskArtists)
Chile: Court Rejects Claim Against Feminist Group Las Tesis
teleSUR
Excerpt: "Valparaiso's Guarantee Court on Monday rejected a lawsuit against four members of the feminist group Las Tesis who were accused of inciting violence after their 'A Rapist on Your Way' performance."
Their work "A Rapist on Your Way" has become a symbol of the struggle for women's rights worldwide.
The Military police (Carabineros) accused them of creating animosity against the institution, following the broadcast of a video in which Las Tesis appeared outside a police station denouncing violence against women.
Highlighting the artistic nature of the group, Judge Ingrid Alveal explained that there were no proofs to show a connection between their statements and actions and possible aggressions received by police officers during social protests in 2019.
After the verdict was announced, Las Tesis expressed their hope that no artistic group or artist in Chile will have to face legal proceedings because of the content of their works.
"We also hope that public resources will be invested in fighting against the impunity of sexual abusers, rapists," they said.
The meme reads, "A rapist on your way by Las Tesis and hundreds of women at Santiago's Court Palace... And the fault was not mine, or where I was, or how I dressed... The rapist is you."
In November 2019, "A Rapist on Your Way" was first performed by Paula Cometa, Lea Caceres, Sibila Sotomayor, and Dafne Valdes on the International Day for The Elimination of Violence Against Women.
The performance took over social networks and became the anthem of the struggle against patriarchy and violence against women worldwide.
The feminist group received several signs of support from human rights activists and celebrities who condemned the decision by police forces to present charges.
"Las Tesis has been key in denouncing police violence and violence against women in Chile... their song has become a symbol of the universal demand of women to be able to live a life free of violence," UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteurs said.
A family of gray wolves tends to their pups. After 45 years, gray wolves were delisted from the
Trump Administration Removes Gray Wolves From Endangered Species List Despite 'Meager Numbers'
Brett Wilkins, EcoWatch
Wilkins writes: "Wildlife advocates on Monday accused the Trump administration of 'willful ignorance' after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service delisted gray wolves from the Endangered Species Act after 45 years of protection, even though experts say the animals are far from out of the proverbial woods."
USFWS announced the rule change — one of over 100 regulatory rollbacks recently pushed through by the Trump administration — in October. The move will allow state authorities to treat the canines as predators and kill or protect them according to their laws.
In South Dakota, for example, hunters, trappers, landowners, and livestock producers are now permitted to kill gray wolves after obtaining the necessary paperwork, which includes a predator/varmint, furbearer, or hunting license. Landowners on their own property and minors under the age of 16 are exempt from licensing requirements.
In neighboring Minnesota, gray wolves will retain a higher level of protection in the northern part of the state — owners of livestock and other animals can kill wolves that pose an "immediate threat" — while in the southern two-thirds of the state people can shoot wolves that they believe pose any threat to livestock, as long as they surrender the carcass.
In Oregon, on the other hand, "wolves remain protected throughout the state," according to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. "Hunting and trapping of wolves remains prohibited statewide."
Last September, Common Dreams reported that an analysis of deregulation in some Western states revealed that a record-breaking 570 wolves, including dozens of pups, were brutally killed in Idaho over a recent one-year period.
"Tragically, we know how this will play out when states 'manage' wolves, as we have seen in the northern Rocky Mountain region in which they were previously delisted," Samantha Bruegger, wildlife coexistence campaigner for WildEarth Guardians, said in reaction to Monday's delisting.
Bruegger cited the Idaho killings, as well as the situation in Washington, where last year "the state slaughtered an entire pack of wolves due to supposed conflicts with ranching interests," as proof that "without federal protections, wolves are vulnerable to the whims and politics of state management."
Monday's delisting comes despite the enduring precarity of wolf populations throughout much of the country. According to the most recent USFWS data, there are only 108 wolves in Washington state, 158 in Oregon, and 15 in California, while wolves are "functionally extinct" in Nevada, Utah, and Colorado.
"These meager numbers lay the groundwork for a legal challenge planned by WildEarth Guardians with a coalition of conservation groups to be filed later this month," said Bruegger.
Lindsay Larris, wildlife program director at WildEarth Guardians, said in a statement that "the delisting of gray wolves is the latest causality of the Trump administration's willful ignorance of the biodiversity crisis and scientific facts."
"Even with [President Donald] Trump's days in office dwindling, the long-term impact of illegitimate decisions like the wolf delisting will take years to correct," Larris added. "Guardians is committed to challenging this decision in court, while working across political channels to ensure wolves receive as much protection as possible at the state level in the interim."
