01 February 21
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RSN: Marc Ash | Have We Reached Peak Trump Yet?
Marc Ash, Reader Supported News
Ash writes: "Is Trump destined for a triumphant return to the Oval Office, or has he jumped the shark once too often?"
s the wounded Trump animal shelters in splendor @Mar-a-Lago, it plots new counterattacks against pursuers and detractors alike and a return to power it sees as its birthright. Is Trump destined for a triumphant return to the Oval Office, or has he jumped the shark once too often?
Trump clearly still wields fearsome power. With his naked attempt to convert the American Democratic Republic to a dictatorship under his control thwarted by over 81 million voters in the largest voter turnout in US history, he has turned his attention to consolidating his power over the Republican Party. The vast majority of Republicans are clicking their heels in compliance, vowing to go down with the SS Trump before surrendering. But there’s a book they might want to read first.
Rick Wilson is a Republican strategist, some might say operative. He’s no fan of Donald Trump. His 2018 New York Times bestseller titled Everything Trump Touches Dies underscored the harsh reality of doing business with Trump: your interests are subservient to his, and it’s not a matter of if he will cash you in, it’s only a matter of when.
Though his supporters can little see it, Trump is, if nothing else, an epic meltdown machine. A serial trainwreck in motion looking for the next curve in the tracks to derail, hurling all passengers into the cold night. Take note, Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, that means you.
In fairness to McConnell and McCarthy, in the moments after the Capitol was stormed by Trump supporters at his direction, both, clearly shaken, moved to repudiate and distance themselves from Trump. They have been brought back by the Republican base, better defined as the Trump base, for now. So Trump’s populism remains his strength and his most potent weapon.
Trump was a uniquely unorthodox and unconventional president wielding power in unprecedented ways. The moment when his supporters stormed the Capitol, truly believing they could overthrow the US government and keep him in power, was thus far the high point of Trump’s campaign to control American affairs. Dark though it may have been.
Tump’s supporter army, assembled of individual participants from a wide array of American communities, now proves no match for federal law enforcement. The FBI can pick at its leisure which cases to prioritize and which to monitor. Trump’s brazen, full-scale assault on the Republic having failed, the question now arises: Has he played his strongest card to no avail? That question is best answered by another question: Will Trump be president again?
If the “massive wave of defections” from Republican voter ranks after the Capitol insurrection is any indication, while Trump’s control of the party remains nearly total, the party seems to be, if not imploding, at least contracting around him.
If Trump fails now, he takes everyone and everything who supported him with him. It would be a fitting tribute to the coronavirus victims they allowed to die.
Marc Ash is the founder and former Executive Director of Truthout, and is now founder and Editor of Reader Supported News.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
President Joe Biden signs his first executive order in the Oval Office of the White House on Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2021. (photo: Evan Vucci/AP)
Biden More Likely to Bypass Republicans on COVID Stimulus Aid After Lowball Offer
Tom McCarthy, Guardian UK
McCarthy writes: "Republican senators made a lowball offer on Sunday to cooperate with the Biden administration on a new coronavirus relief package, increasing the likelihood that the White House will seek to bypass Republicans to fund its proposal."
Ten Republican senators pitched plan with a reported $600bn – less than a third of the $1.9tn package the Biden team has laid out
A group of 10 Republican senators led by Susan Collins of Maine pitched Joe Biden a sketch of a relief plan with a reported $600bn total price tag – less than a third of the $1.9tn stimulus package the Biden team has laid out over the last days.
The yawning gap between the two numbers caused some observers to question whether Republicans were really trying to reach a deal – or instead were laying the groundwork for future accusations that Biden had not seriously pursued his promises to try to work with Republicans.
Asked about the new Republican offer on the NBC News program Meet the Press, national economic council director Brian Deese said Biden is “open to ideas” but would not be stalled.
“What he’s uncompromising about is the need to move with speed on a comprehensive approach here,” Deese said.
“We have a virus crisis; we have an economic crisis. We have to get shots in people’s arms. We have to get the schools reopened so that parents can go back to work. And we need to provide direct relief to families and businesses across the country who are really struggling here.”
One signatory of the Republican offer, senator Rob Portman of Ohio, who has announced his upcoming retirement, told CNN that the $1.9tn price tag was too high “at a time of unprecedented deficits and debts”.
But moderate Democratic senator Jon Tester of Montana said the twin crises of the pandemic and record unemployment demanded decisive action. “I don’t think $1.9tn, even though it is a boatload of money, is too much money,” Tester told CNN. “I think now is not the time to starve the economy.”
The US has just surpassed 26m confirmed Covid cases and 440,000 deaths. Unemployment insurance claims topped 1m last week and 30 million Americans reported suffering from food scarcity.
Hoping for a break with the lockstep partisanship of the Donald Trump years, Biden has made working with Republicans a stated priority of his early presidency.
But his advisers have also signaled that speed is important and that they will use a parliamentary measure known as budget reconciliation to fund their Covid relief bill if no Republicans come onboard.
With a 50-member majority in the US Senate clinched by the vote of vice-president Kamala Harris, Democrats could advance the relief package alone – if they are able to craft a deal that does not lose centrists such as West Virginia senator Joe Manchin.
“This is a unique crisis,” Deese told CNN. “It’s a unique health crisis, a unique economic crisis, and it’s one that calls on all of us to work together with the speed that we need to put a comprehensive response in place.”
The Biden plan calls for $1,400 payments to individuals, enhanced unemployment benefits, a $15 minimum wage, support for schools to help them reopen safely, and money for vaccine distribution and administration.
Republicans pointed out that Congress has already appropriated $4tn for coronavirus relief in the last year and that some of the $900bn allocated last month has not been spent.
Portman said the proposal for $1,400 payouts to individuals in the Biden plan should be restricted based on income. Manchin has echoed that proposal, saying that families earning from $250,000-$300,000 should not necessarily qualify.
The importance of keeping Manchin onboard was underscored when the senator reacted negatively to a surprise appearance by Harris on a local West Virginia television station calling for support for more Covid relief legislation. The move was received as an awkward effort to pressure Manchin.
“I saw it, I couldn’t believe it,” Manchin said in a local news video. “No one called me. We’re going to try to find a bipartisan pathway forward, but we need to work together. That’s not a way of working together.”
In a letter to Biden outlining their offer, the more moderate Republicans quoted his call in his inaugural address for bipartisan unity and said “we welcome the opportunity to work with you.”
“We believe that this plan could be approved quickly by Congress with bipartisan support,” the letter said.
The Republican proposal mirrored some provisions of the Biden plan, such as $160bn in new spending on vaccines, testing, treatment, and personal protective equipment. The Republicans said they would provide more details on Monday.
But Democrats did not appear willing to wait for long to hear the Republican pitch. Senator Bernie Sanders, the incoming chairman of the budget committee, told ABC News’ This Week program: “We have got to act and we have got to act now”.
Colleagues said that Butch Bowers is known for his discretion and behind-the-scenes negotiating skills. (photo: Virginia Postic/AP)
Trump's Legal Team Exited After He Insisted Impeachment Defense Focus on False Claims of Election Fraud
Josh Dawsey, Tom Hamburger and Amy Gardner, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "The implosion of former president Donald Trump's legal team comes as Trump remains fixated on arguing at his second impeachment trial that the 2020 election was stolen from him, a defense that advisers warn is ill-conceived and Republican strategists fear will fuel the growing divide in the GOP."
South Carolina lawyer Karl S. “Butch” Bowers Jr. and four other attorneys who recently signed on to represent the former president abruptly parted ways with him this weekend, days before his Feb. 9 Senate trial for his role in inciting the attack on the U.S. Capitol. On Sunday evening, Trump’s office announced two new lawyers were taking over his defense.
Two people familiar with the discussions preceding the departure of the original legal team said that Trump wanted them to make the case during the trial that he actually won the election. To do so would require citing his false claims of election fraud — even as his allies and attorneys have said that he should instead focus on arguing that impeaching a president who has already left office is unconstitutional.
That approach has already been embraced by many Republican senators, many of whom cited it when they cast a test vote against impeachment last week.
Nearly all GOP senators vote against impeachment trial for Trump, signaling likely acquittal
Trump’s lawyers had initially planned to center their strategy on the question of whether the proceedings were constitutional and on the definition of incitement, according to one of the people, who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the internal conversations.
But the former president repeatedly said he wanted to litigate the voter fraud allegations and the 2020 race — and was seeking a more public defense of his actions. Bowers told Trump he couldn’t mount the defense that Trump wanted, the person said.
“It truly was mutual,” the person said. “The president wanted a different defense. The president wanted a different approach and a different team.”
Trump spokesman Jason Miller also said Sunday that the split with his lawyers was mutual but rejected the notion that the former president wants to focus on election fraud in the Senate trial, calling that account “fake news.”
“The only guidance offered has been to focus on the unconstitutional nature of the impeachment to which 45 senators have already voted in agreement,” Miller wrote in a text message.
Bowers and the other lawyers who quit Trump’s defense team did not respond to requests for comment. CNN first reported that Trump wanted his attorneys to center his defense on his claims of election fraud.
On Sunday evening, Trump’s office announced in a statement that Atlanta-based trial attorney David Schoen and Bruce L. Castor Jr., a former district attorney in Montgomery County, Pa., would lead his defense team. The two lawyers will bring “national profiles and significant trial experience in high-profile cases to the effort,” the statement said.
Schoen previously served as a lawyer for Trump adviser Roger Stone when he sought to appeal his conviction for lying and witness tampering in a congressional investigation. He also was in discussions with financier Jeffrey Epstein about representing him days before his death while awaiting sex-trafficking charges and has said he does not believe Epstein killed himself. During his time as district attorney, Castor had declined to prosecute actor Bill Cosby and was later sued by accuser Andrea Constand in a case that was settled.
The disarray inside Trump’s circle comes as the House Democratic impeachment managers focus intensely on building a powerful and emotionally compelling argument that the former president’s words led his supporters to ransack the Capitol.
The House impeachment article charges Trump with “incitement of insurrection” in the invasion of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 by a pro-Trump mob.
The Democrats have been working around-the-clock in preparation for the trial — including on Saturday night, when the news broke of Trump’s legal team collapsing, according to people familiar with their activities.
The impeachment managers are compiling footage from Jan. 6, including cellphone recordings of protesters attending Trump’s rally that morning and video from inside the Capitol after protesters breached it.
Their aim is to present stark evidence of how Trump’s words and actions — including his long-running attacks on the integrity of the election — influenced the rioters. The attempted insurrection left five dead, including one member of the U.S. Capitol Police. In addition, two officers, one with the D.C. police, have since died by suicide.
Both sides face tight deadlines to prepare for the trial. The House team must file its briefs Tuesday. Trump’s defense team lawyers must file their briefs on Feb. 8.
Democrats face a difficult task in persuading enough GOP senators to join them in voting to convict the former president. During a key test vote last week, all but five Republicans backed Trump in an objection to the proceeding lodged by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.).
But Trump’s determination to mount a defense centered on the false claims that fraud tipped the outcome to President Biden could rattle GOP senators at a time when some in the party are facing pressure from donors and more moderate voters to reject such conspiracy theories.
“Trump went 0 for 60 in trying to make the voter fraud argument,” said veteran GOP lawyer Ben Ginsberg. “So Republican senators have no desire to be put on the spot in having to judge his unproven allegations of voter fraud.”
Ginsberg warned that Democrats have “so much raw material” that will allow them to “paint a picture of Trump that’s never been painted before of his involvement in the violence and insurrection.”
“And Trump plays right into their hands in talking about the fraud, for which he has been unable to produce any proof,” he said. “Which is why it’s a completely perilous defense. I can’t imagine any lawyer agreeing to present that case.”
It is also unclear whether Democratic Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), who will preside at the trial, will permit the president’s team to introduce claims of alleged voter fraud.
The collapse of Trump’s legal team could “force the president now to turn to a better strategy,” one that would save him “from self-immolation,” said Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University who declined an offer to represent the president at the impeachment trial.
If Trump insists on arguing that the election was stolen, he would be on a destructive path, Turley said.
“That claim is viewed by many senators as one of open contempt for their institution,” he said. “As it stands now, he would be acquitted by a fair margin. If he pursued that path, it could change the view and the votes of some senators.”
The former president’s allies have also urged him to move forward with a defense based on constitutional questions.
In a recent interview with The Washington Post before Trump split with his lawyers, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said the legal team planned to argue that impeaching a president who had already left office was unconstitutional, without getting into any battle over who won the election.
“It’s a simple case, really,” he said.
But Trump, who has been ensconced at his private estate in Florida since leaving the White House, has continued to insist that he actually won the election, according to people familiar with his comments.
As the trial nears, the former president’s circle of advisers has drastically narrowed. He is continuing to talk with his personal attorney Rudolph W. Giuliani, who led his efforts to subvert the election results. But former White House counsel Pat Cipollone, outside lawyer Jay Sekulow and former campaign lawyer Justin Clark have made clear they want no part of his defense strategy over the Capitol attack.
Some advisers have told Trump that he should testify in his own defense, but that is broadly seen as a bad idea and is unlikely to happen.
Cipollone and Giuliani did not respond to requests for comment.
With the help of Graham, Trump had assembled a team of five lawyers led by Bowers, an ethics and campaign law expert in South Carolina who had worked in the Justice Department under President George W. Bush.
The group included three former federal prosecutors in the state — Deborah Barbier, Johnny Gasser and Gregory Harris — as well as a North Carolina lawyer, Josh Howard. All left the Trump defense team Saturday, according to people familiar with the situation.
Miller said that only Barbier and Bowers had officially been named to the team.
The selection of a South Carolina-based legal team was a dramatic shift from Trump’s previous impeachment last year, when he was charged with abusing his power and obstructing Congress in pressuring Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Biden and his family.
During that trial, Trump was defended by lawyers experienced on the national stage. They included Kenneth Starr, the former special prosecutor whose work led to President Bill Clinton’s impeachment; Sekulow, who had defended Trump in other cases; and Alan Dershowitz, a Harvard University law professor known for his work in high-profile, controversial cases.
Losing his legal team days before the Senate trial presents a serious challenge, said Norm Eisen, an attorney who served as co-counsel to the Democratic managers during Trump’s first impeachment.
“This is a total disaster,” he said. “These are real trials, even if they are being litigated in the U.S. Senate, and I can tell you, the defense team needs to be prepared for what’s ahead.”
He said the late decision by Trump’s legal team to withdraw was a sign that the lawyers faced a deep ethical conundrum.
“It is anathema under our code of ethics to pull out on a client on the eve of a trial — unless that client places you in an impossible situation,” Eisen said.
If the Trump legal team had argued Trump’s claim that the election was stolen, “they would be arguing an out-and-out lie, and these lawyers were looking at the consequences of that,” he said, noting that other Trump lawyers are now facing ethics complaints, court sanctions and libel suits for pursuing fraud claims with no basis.
“I believe they were unwilling to expose themselves to years of repercussions for doing that,” Eisen said.
In this May 6, 2016, file photo, Aung San Suu Kyi, left, Myanmar's foreign minister, walks with senior General Min Aung Hlaing, right, Myanmar military's commander-in-chief, in Naypyitaw, Myanmar. (photo: Aung Shine Oo/AP)
Myanmar Military Detains Aung San Suu Kyi, Retakes Control of Country
Associated Press
Excerpt: "Myanmar's military staged a coup Monday and detained senior politicians including Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi - a sharp reversal of the significant, if uneven, progress toward democracy the Southeast Asian nation has made following five decades of military rule."
An announcement read on military-owned Myawaddy TV said Commander-in-Chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing would be in charge of the country for one year. It said the seizure was necessary because the government had not acted on the military’s claims of fraud in November’s elections — in which Suu Kyi’s ruling party won a majority of the parliamentary seats up for grabs — and because it allowed the election to go ahead despite the coronavirus pandemic.
The takeover came the morning the country’s new parliamentary session was to begin and follows days of concern that a coup was coming. The military maintains its actions are legally justified — citing a section of the constitution it drafted that allows it to take control in times of national emergency — though Suu Kyi’s party spokesman as well as many international observers have said it amounts to a coup.
It was a dramatic backslide for Myanmar, which was emerging from decades of strict military rule and international isolation that began in 1962. It was also a shocking fall from power for Suu Kyi, a Nobel peace laureate who had lived under house arrest for years as she tried to push her country toward democracy and then became its de facto leader after her National League for Democracy won elections in 2015.
While Suu Kyi had been a fierce antagonist of the army while under house arrest, since her release and return to politics, she has had to work with the country’s generals, who never fully gave up power. While the 75-year-old has remained wildly popular at home, Suu Kyi’s deference to the generals — going so far as to defend their crackdown on Rohingya Muslims that the United States and others have labeled genocide — has left her reputation internationally in tatters.
For some, Monday’s takeover was seen as confirmation that the military holds ultimate power despite the veneer of democracy. New York-based Human Rights Watch has previously described the clause in the constitution that the military invoked as a “coup mechanism in waiting.”
The embarrassingly poor showing of the military-backed party in the November vote may have been the spark.
Larry Jagan, an independent analyst, said the takeover was just a “pretext for the military to reassert their full influence over the political infrastructure of the country and to determine the future, at least in the short term,” adding that the generals do not want Suu Kyi to be a part of that future.
The coup now presents a test for the international community, which had ostracized Myanmar while it was under military rule and then enthusiastically embraced Suu Kyi’s government as a sign the country was finally on the path to democracy. There will likely be calls for a reintroduction of at least some of the sanctions the country had long faced.
The first signs that the military was planning to seize power were reports that Suu Kyi and Win Myint, the country’s president, had been detained before dawn.
Myo Nyunt, a spokesman for Suu Kyi’s party, told the online news service The Irrawaddy that in addition to Suu Kyi and the president, members of the party’s Central Executive Committee, many of its lawmakers and other senior leaders had also been taken into custody.
Television signals were cut across the country, as was phone and internet access in Naypyitaw, the capital, while passenger flights were grounded. Phone service in other parts of the country was also reported down, though people were still able to use the internet in many areas.
As word of the military’s actions spread in Yangon, the country’s biggest city, there was a growing sense of unease among residents who earlier in the day had packed into tea shops for breakfast and went about their morning shopping.
By midday, people were removing the bright red flags of Suu Kyi’s party that once adorned their homes and businesses. Lines formed at ATMs as people waited to take out cash, efforts that were being complicated by internet disruptions. Workers at some businesses decided to go home.
Suu Kyi’s party released a statement on one of its Facebook pages saying the military’s actions were unjustified and went against the constitution and the will of voters. The statement urged people to oppose Monday’s “coup” and any return to “military dictatorship.” It was not possible to confirm who posted the message as party members were not answering phone calls.
The military’s actions also received international condemnation and many countries called for the release of the detained leaders.
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken expressed “grave concern and alarm” over the reported detentions.
“We call on Burmese military leaders to release all government officials and civil society leaders and respect the will of the people of Burma as expressed in democratic elections,” he wrote in a statement, using Myanmar’s former name.
The office of the U.N. secretary-general called the developments as a “serious blow to democratic reforms.”
A list of people believed to have been detained, compiled by political activists, included several people who were not politicians, including activists as well as a filmmaker and a writer. Those detentions could not be confirmed.
In addition to announcing that the commander in chief would be charge, the military TV report said Vice President Myint Swe would be elevated to acting president. Myint Swe is a former general best known for leading a brutal crackdown on Buddhist monks in 2007. He is a close ally of Than Shwe, the junta leader who ruled Myanmar for nearly two decades.
In a later announcement, the military said an election would be held in a year and the military would hand power to the winner.
The military justified its move by citing a clause in the 2008 constitution, implemented during military rule, that says in cases of national emergency, the government’s executive, legislative and judicial powers can be handed to the military commander-in-chief.
It is just one of many parts of the charter that ensured the military could maintain ultimate control over the country. The military is allowed to appoint its members to 25% of seats in Parliament and it controls of several key ministries involved in security and defense.
In November polls, Suu Kyi’s party captured 396 out of 476 seats up for actual election in the lower and upper houses of Parliament.
The military has charged that there was massive fraud in the election — particularly with regard to voter lists — though it has not offered any convincing evidence. The state Union Election Commission last week rejected its allegations.
Concerns of a takeover grew last week when a military spokesman declined to rule out the possibility of a coup when asked by a reporter to do so at a news conference on Tuesday.
Then on Wednesday, the military chief told senior officers in a speech that the constitution could be revoked if the laws were not being properly enforced. An unusual deployment of armored vehicles in the streets of several large cities also stoked fears.
On Saturday and Sunday, however, the military denied it had threatened a coup, accusing unnamed organizations and media of misrepresenting its position.
Screenshot from Rochester Police Department bodycam footage released Sunday. (photo Rochester Democrat and Chronicle/USA Today)
Rochester NY Police Pepper Spray 9 Year Old Girl Screaming for Her Father
Marcia Greenwood, Will Cleveland and Brian Sharp, The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
Excerpt: "Police in New York state released two bodycam videos on Sunday that showed officers restraining a distraught 9-year-old girl who was handcuffed and later sprayed with a chemical 'irritant' when she disobeyed commands."
olice in New York state released two bodycam videos on Sunday that showed officers restraining a distraught 9-year-old girl who was handcuffed and later sprayed with a chemical "irritant" when she disobeyed commands.
The release of the video footage by the Rochester Police Department came after Mayor Lovely Warren emotionally expressed her concern for the “child that was harmed during this incident that happened on Friday.”
“I have a 10-year-old child, so she’s a child, she’s a baby," Warren said. "This video, as a mother, is not anything you want to see.”
In the videos, the girl can be heard repeatedly and frantically screaming for her father as officers try to restrain her after responding to a call for "family trouble" on Friday afternoon. A total of nine officers and RPD supervisors ended up responding to the call, police said.
At a Sunday press conference, Deputy Police Chief Andre Anderson described the girl as suicidal.
"She indicated she wanted to kill herself and she wanted to kill her mom,” he said.
In one of the videos, an officer can be heard asking the girl, “What is going on? How can I help?”
When officers then tried to put the girl into the back of a patrol car, she pulled away and kicked at them.
In a statement Saturday, police said the girl's actions “required” an officer to take her to the ground, adding that “for the minor’s safety and at the request of the custodial parent on scene,” the child was handcuffed and put in the back of a police car as they waited for an ambulance.
An officer was “required” to spray an “irritant” in the handcuffed girl’s face when she disobeyed commands to put her feet in the car, police said Saturday.
Police Chief Cynthia Herriott-Sullivan on Sunday described the irritant as pepper spray.
That part of the interaction plays out near the end of the second video. As the girl continues to struggle and cry, an officer can be heard saying, “Just spray her at this point” and closes the car door.
The child was taken to Rochester General Hospital under the state’s mental hygiene law and “received the services and care that she needed,” police said.
After being treated, she was released to her family.
“I’m very concerned about how this young girl was handled by our police department," Warren said at Sunday's press conference. "It is clear from the video we need to do more in support of our children and families.”
Said Herriott-Sullivan, “I’m not going to stand here and tell you that for a 9-year-old to have to be pepper-sprayed is OK. It’s not. I don’t see that as who we are as a department, and we’re going to do the work we have to do to ensure that these kinds of things don’t happen.”
The city recently launched a Person in Crisis Team, which is under its reimagined Office of Crisis Intervention Services. It was formed late last year and took away certain responsibilities from RPD. It became operational last week but was not summoned for Friday's call, Warren said.
The city began reassessing its response to mental health-related calls after the death of Daniel Prude in March 2020. It became public five months later and sparked massive protests, where there were calls for RPD to change how it responds to calls involving mental health distress.
Gerardo Zacarias (R), fears his daughter Paola Damaris is among the 19 bodies found shot and burnt in a remote part of northern Mexico. (photo: José Torres/Reuters)
Missing Guatemalan Woman's Family Urges Mexico to Solve Killings of 19 Suspected Migrants
Reuters
Excerpt: "The family of a young Guatemalan woman believed to be among 19 victims of a massacre in northern Mexico is urging the Mexican government to bring those responsible to justice."
The family is providing DNA samples to Mexican authorities to help investigators identify the remains found in Tamaulipas
State prosecutors in Mexico’s Tamaulipas state said there were at least two Guatemalans among the bodies found. The attorney general’s office said in a statement that investigators had so far genetically identified four of the dead with the aid of their families.
Two were Guatemalans and two were Mexicans, the office said, without giving the names of the people. Some Guatemalan families had said they feared loved ones trying to migrate to the US were among those killed in Tamaulipas.
Authorities said preliminary findings suggested that 16 of the bodies were male, one was female, and two were still unclear because they were so badly burned.
Paola Damaris Zacarias, 22, from the small Guatemalan town of Catarina near the border with Mexico, is suspected to have been among those who died.
“We want justice, an investigation that gets right to the bottom of who was responsible,” her brother Hector Zacarias said in an interview on Friday. “I ask the Mexican authorities to look into this, to find out the truth, and what motivated it.
“This has caused us great sorrow.”
Paola’s father, Gerardo Zacarias, said the family had given DNA samples in the hope that investigators can identify the remains found in Tamaulipas, an often dangerous region where migrants have previously fallen victim to ruthless drug gangs.
Zacarias said his daughter had set off for the US to find work because of the lack of opportunities in Guatemala. The family last heard from her on 22 January, he said, not long before Mexican officials discovered the bodies.
The killings have caused renewed consternation in Mexico about the perils faced by migrants, many of whom come from the three violent and impoverished Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
Hector Zacarias was disconsolate.
“These are young people with goals, who were battling to get ahead in the world,” he said. “But unfortunately, they fell into the hands of people with no heart, no mercy.”
A plant looms behind apartments in St. Gabriel, Louisiana, which lies in 'Cancer Alley,' the stretch of the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge where a high concentration of petrochemical facilities contributes to some of the nation's worst toxic air pollution. (photo: Sophia Germer/The Times-Picayune/The Advocate)
Air Quality Regulators in "Cancer Alley" Have Fallen Dangerously Behind
Mark Schleifstein, ProPublica
Excerpt: "An audit found that the time it takes the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality to issue penalties to polluters has doubled. Some companies that have been known to violate air quality rules were able to keep at it for years, or even decades."
he Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality needs to do a better job of identifying industrial polluters that don't properly report emission violations, and it should enforce those violations more aggressively, according to a new management audit by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s office.
Many of the audit's findings tracked those of a 2019 investigation by The Times-Picayune, The Advocate and ProPublica.
The newsrooms showed how emissions of cancer-causing chemicals from clusters of large industrial facilities in seven parishes along the lower Mississippi River combine to increase overall air toxicity for nearby residents. Overall, the analysis found that a crush of new industrial plants will increase the levels of cancer-causing chemicals in the air of predominantly Black and poor communities.
The auditor’s report found that the time it took for the LDEQ to issue enforcement actions after a known violation more than doubled between fiscal year 2015 and 2019, from nearly 10 months to nearly 20 months.
Auditors also found it could take as long as nine years from the time a company was cited for violating emission standards before it was ordered to pay a fine or was required by a settlement to pay for a mitigation project.
“Overall, we found DEQ could strengthen its monitoring and enforcement processes by identifying violations and issuing enforcement actions in a timelier manner,” Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera said in a cover letter to the report.
“As a result, there is a risk that facilities may have violations that remain uncorrected for years,” an audit summary said. “Best practices state that effective enforcement includes swift and predictable responses to violations.”
The DEQ also needs to do a better job identifying facilities that fail to submit self-monitoring reports on emissions, and to speed its review of the reports for violations, the audit said. The auditors also found the agency doesn’t adequately track the penalties it has assessed or whether the penalties were paid.
Part of the agency’s enforcement problems can be traced to DEQ’s reduced number of employees, employees’ high workloads, frequent staff turnover “and ineffective data systems,” the audit said.
“Louisiana has the highest toxic air emissions per square mile of any state,” the report said, based on data gathered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's 2018 Toxics Release Inventory, a self-reported measurement of toxic chemicals released into the air, land or water by individual facilities.
Based on TRI data, the audit said, in 2018, Louisiana had an average of 1,239 pounds of toxic air releases per square mile. Ohio, the state with the second-highest air emissions rate, averaged 899 pounds per square mile.
The audit also pointed to the EPA’s most recent National Air Toxics Assessment, from 2014, which identified a number of Louisiana locations where emissions from nearby manufacturing facilities are linked to a high potential for cancer risks or high respiratory illness hazards.
But the audit also pointed out that its criticisms come amid better news about some forms of air pollution in Louisiana. It pointed out that the EPA’s AirNow website’s daily reports of air pollution issues — mostly ground-level ozone and particulate matter — indicated that “good air quality” days in Louisiana had increased by 21% between 2008 and 2018, and the number of “unhealthy days for sensitive groups” had decreased by 71%.
The audit noted that several areas of the state “are highly industrialized and have high concentrations of air pollution” involving chemicals not measured by AirNow. The EPA does not regularly monitor cancer-causing chemicals such as chlorine and ethylene oxide, which the 2019 investigation by ProPublica, The Times-Picayune and The Advocate highlighted as being elevated in certain parts of Louisiana’s industrial river corridor.
The report included 11 major recommendations. A response included in the report from DEQ Secretary Chuck Carr Brown said the agency generally agreed with 10 of them.
The only one they’re at odds over is a recommendation that DEQ inspectors take photographs or gather other hard evidence that will show inspections actually take place. Brown pointed out that inspectors fill out a field interview form during the inspection that is left at the facility, and that copies are signed by both the inspectors and facility employees.
But the audit report pointed out that the DEQ had to notify both the state legislative auditor and the EPA’s inspector general that a former employee had falsified at least three compliance investigations.
The facilities involved were not named in the report.
A spokesman for the DEQ said the skipped inspections were the fault of an employee who left the agency before they were discovered.
In his response included in the audit, Brown said DEQ is developing its own software to allow the staff to better track violations. When complete, it should also issue notices to staffers if reports aren’t submitted on time or if a new violation shows up in a company’s records. Brown did not say when the software would be ready.
Other findings of the audit include:
- The DEQ should vary when it inspects facilities so the inspections are less predictable. DEQ agreed.
- DEQ should develop goals for how long it should take to issue enforcement actions and track their progress. Again, DEQ agreed.
- DEQ should establish a process requiring facilities to submit settlement offers within a certain time frame, such as six months, and draft a penalty amount for those who do not comply. This recommendation is aimed at shortening the time between when a company is notified of a penalty and when the agency issues a final penalty decision, a span that now often lasts several years. DEQ mostly agreed, but it pointed out that compliance orders and notices of potential penalty are subject to appeal, which can delay the process.
- DEQ management should determine whether staffing levels are sufficient and, if not, should request funding for additional staff. DEQ agreed to consider moving staff within its divisions, but said requesting more money was likely to be a problem.
The Legislative Auditor’s office has produced a podcast explaining the highlights of its report for members of the Legislature.
