07 April 21
It's Live on the HomePage Now:
Reader Supported News
FUNDRAISING IS NEVER PLEASANT, NEITHER IS OLIGARCHY — “Oligarchy (from Greek (oligarkhía); from (olígos), meaning "few,” and (arkho), meaning "to rule or to command") is a form of power structure in which power effectively rests with a small number of people. These people could be distinguished by royalty, wealth, family ties, education, corporate, or military control.” In contrast RSN is something you control through your contributions. Think about it. / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News
Sure, I'll make a donation!
David Sirota and Andrew Perez | Joe Manchin Wants to Keep the Corporate Tax Rate as Low as Possible
David Sirota and Andrew Perez, Jacobin
Excerpt: "West Virginia senator Joe Manchin is threatening to block President Joe Biden's higher corporate tax rate as part of Biden's infrastructure bill."
West Virginia senator Joe Manchin is threatening to block President Joe Biden's higher corporate tax rate as part of Biden’s infrastructure bill — a move that could shield private equity firms whose executives boosted Manchin’s campaign and bet big on Trump’s tax bill.
emocratic Sen. Joe Manchin on Monday began raising objections to President Biden’s legislation to fund infrastructure investments by raising the corporate tax rate to 28 percent. Derailing the tax hike would be a lucrative gift to both corporate CEOs in general, and to private equity giants whose executives bankrolled the lawmaker’s 2018 campaign and funded a super PAC that boosted his closely contested reelection bid.
On Monday, Manchin discussed Biden’s infrastructure plan with West Virginia MetroNews, and declared: “If I don’t vote to get on it, it’s not going anywhere.”
“As the bill exists today, it needs to be changed,” Manchin said. While Biden’s plan calls for raising the corporate tax rate from 21 percent to 28 percent, Manchin said he believes the corporate tax rate should be closer to 25 percent for the United States “to be competitive.”
On Monday, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, told reporters that the Democratic caucus and the Senate finance committee will work together to set a final corporate tax rate figure. But Manchin’s proposed change would have a huge impact on how the Biden infrastructure plan is paid for, while largely preserving a tax policy that is delivering a disproportionately huge windfall to a tiny handful of executives at major corporations.
Last month, the Daily Poster reported on a recent study by Grinnell College economist Eric Ohrn showing that for every dollar that publicly traded firms reap from corporate tax cuts, “compensation of the firm’s top five highest paid executives increases by 15 to 19 cents.” That study preceded last week’s revelations that fifty-five publicly traded corporations paid zero corporate taxes last year.
Manchin’s move could also particularly benefit private equity firms that have converted from partnership structures to C Corporations to take advantage of former president Donald Trump’s tax law, which dropped the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent.
Such conversions allow private equity firms to attract capital from a wider array of institutional investors who may not have been permitted to invest in partnerships. But private equity firms had not converted until a lower corporate tax rate made the switch even more profitable. The conversions are effectively permanent.
Ares Management was the first private equity giant to convert from a partnership structure to a C Corporation. The firm’s executives were together among his top donors during his 2018 reelection bid. In all, they funneled more than $21,000 to his reelection campaign that year, according to federal records reviewed by the Daily Poster.
Data compiled by OpenSecrets show that was part of more than $212,000 that the private equity and investment industry delivered to Manchin during an election cycle in which he was given a “small business investment” award by a major private equity group that has been lobbying on tax issues.
The Blackstone Group and the Carlyle Group have also converted from partnerships to C Corporations. Executives from those firms donated $4.4 million to Senate Democrats’ super PAC, Senate Majority PAC, during the last two election cycles, including $1.3 million in 2018 when Manchin was reelected with the group’s support.
Changing the tax rates now could eat into these private equity firms’ profits. Ares, Blackstone, and Carlyle have all recently lobbied on federal tax issues, according to the most recent federal disclosures.
While Manchin has been fighting to keep the corporate tax rate low, Ares has been explicitly warning investors that “any substantial changes in domestic or international corporate tax policies, regulations or guidance, enforcement activities or legislative initiatives may adversely affect our business.”
There was initially talk of Biden’s tax plan including provisions to close the so-called private equity tax loophole, but that language was excluded from the initiative.
READ MORE
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL). (photo: Getty)
Matt Gaetz Sought Blanket Pardon From Trump White House: Report
Tal Axelrod, The Hill
Axelrod writes: "Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) reportedly sought a blanket preemptive pardon from the White House during the final weeks of President Trump's administration, a revelation that comes as the lawmaker finds himself the subject of a federal sex trafficking investigation."
Gaetz asked Trump for a pardon for him and unidentified congressional allies, two people familiar with the discussion told The New York Times. The conversation came at roughly the same time that Gaetz publicly called for Trump to pardon GOP allies and as the Justice Department investigated the Florida Republican over an alleged relationship with a 17-year-old that violated sex trafficking laws.
It was not immediately clear if Gaetz was aware of the federal inquiry when he asked for a pardon, according to the Times. The request from Gaetz was communicated to a Trump aide, and it was also not clear if Gaetz requested a pardon directly with the then-president, the newspaper reported.
Spokespeople for Trump and Gaetz did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Hill.
“Entry-level political operatives have conflated a pardon call from Representative Gaetz — where he called for President Trump to pardon ‘everyone from himself, to his administration, to Joe Exotic’ — with these false and increasingly bizarre, partisan allegations against him,” a Gaetz spokesman told the Times.
“Those comments have been on the record for some time, and President Trump even retweeted the congressman, who tweeted them out himself,” the spokesman added.
Gaetz also said last month that he is “not seeking a pardon.”
The Times report is the latest development in a swirling scandal surrounding Gaetz.
Besides the Justice Department investigation, reports have also emerged alleging that Gaetz showed colleagues nude photos of women he claimed to have slept with and took illegal drugs and paid for sex with women.
Gaetz has denied all of the allegations and maintained that they are part of a smear campaign against him by his political opponents.
"Washington scandal cycles are predictable, and sex is especially potent in politics," Gaetz wrote in an editorial published Monday in the Washington Examiner. "Let me first remind everyone that I am a representative in Congress, not a monk, and certainly not a criminal."
READ MORE
Joe Biden speaks at the White House in Washington, D.C., on 6 April. (photo: Oliver Contreras/EPA)
Biden Announces All US Adults Will Be Eligible for Covid Vaccine by April 19
Lauren Gambino, Guardian UK
Gambino writes: "The US was in a hurry to vaccinate on Wednesday as Joe Biden announced the day before that all US adults would be eligible to receive the Covid-19 vaccine by 19 April, even as he warned that the nation was still in a 'life-and-death race' against the virus."
President touts success in accelerating vaccination effort but warns US still in ‘life-and-death race’ against virus
he US was in a hurry to vaccinate on Wednesday as Joe Biden announced the day before that all US adults would be eligible to receive the Covid-19 vaccine by 19 April, even as he warned that the nation was still in a “life-and-death race” against the virus.
Half of all US adults are expected to have had at least one shot of the available vaccines by the start of next week and 108 million have been vaccinated so far in the US, covering more than 40% of the eligible population aged 16 and older – or almost a third of the total population of the US.
But many states are still seeing coronavirus on the rise. Michigan, for example, is seeing rates of increase not experienced since the late autumn surge in November, with three quarters of new cases believed to be the more contagious UK variant of Covid-19.
Pairing optimism with caution at the White House on Tuesday, the president touted the administration’s success in accelerating the pace of the vaccination effort, including the milestone of administering a record 4m doses in a single day. But that progress, he said, is threatened by the rise in coronavirus cases in many states across the US as dangerous variants spread and some officials loosen public health restrictions.
“We aren’t at the finish line. We still have a lot of work to do,” Biden said in remarks at the White House on Tuesday. “We’re still in a life-and-death race against this virus.”
In his remarks, Biden expressed confidence that every American over the age of 18 would be eligible to get in the “virtual line” to be vaccinated soon.
The White House coronavirus expert team, led by Dr Anthony Fauci, will deliver its latest briefing to the public on Wednesday morning.
Fauci warned against young people in particular behaving as though the pandemic were over.
“More and more young people are getting into serious trouble,” he said, with young adults susceptible to “serious disease requiring hospitalizations and sometimes even resulting in tragic deaths”.
Young people are thought to be driving rising numbers in Michigan, for example, where the confirmed total of cases has reached 700,000 and is rising by more than 5,600 a day, the highest rate since December.
Meanwhile, a number of US states have already said they will meet the accelerated timeline for vaccine eligibility, which is roughly two weeks earlier than the initial 1 May goal. Meanwhile, states such as New Jersey and Oregon announced this week that all Americans over 16 would be eligible to sign up for a vaccine on 19 April.
Biden said the new deadline would eliminate uncertainty about eligibility, which varies by state. “No more confusing rules, no more confusing restrictions,” he said.
The president delivered his remarks after visiting a Covid-19 vaccination site in Alexandria, Virginia, where he thanked healthcare workers for administering the shots and urged those getting them to encourage their friends and family to do the same.
“When you go home, get all your friends, tell them, ‘Get a shot when they can,’” he said. “That’s how we’re going to beat this.”
The administration informed governors during a weekly conference call that more than 28m doses of the coronavirus vaccine will be delivered to states this week, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said at her daily briefing. That allocation brings the cumulative total over the past three weeks to 90m doses, she said.
Psaki also said that the administration does not support the creation of a vaccine passport or a federal vaccine database.
“The government is not now, nor will we be supporting a system that requires Americans to carry a credential,” she said. “There will be no federal vaccinations database and no federal mandate requiring everyone to obtain a single vaccination credential.”
Biden also announced that the US had delivered 150m doses of the coronavirus vaccine since the start of his presidency, putting him on track to “beat” his goal of administering 200m shots by his 100th day in office. Biden initially set a goal of achieving 100m shots in his first 100 days, which many experts worried was not ambitious enough. But the administration surpassed that target in March and doubled the number.
But he said it was imperative to continue to follow public safety measures like mask wearing and social distancing.
Sketching a tantalizing vision of a Fourth of July barbecue with friends and family, Biden promised: “Better times are ahead.”
“I want to have an Independence Day – an independence from the Covid,” he said, adding that the challenge remained: “How much death, disease and misery are we going to see between now and then.”
READ MORE
A demonstrator stands in front of a line of police officers in Rochester, N.Y., on Sept. 4, 2020, after a rally and march protesting the death of Daniel Prude. (photo: Adrian Kraus/AP)
Federal Lawsuit Alleges Years of Brutality by Rochester Police
Associated Press
Excerpt: "A lawsuit filed Monday accuses Rochester officials of allowing a culture of police brutality against racial minorities to fester and asks a court to force reforms."
The federal suit comes after the death of Daniel Prude, a Black man who lost consciousness and died after being pinned, naked, to the street by officers responding to a mental health call.
lawsuit filed Monday accuses Rochester officials of allowing a culture of police brutality against racial minorities to fester and asks a court to force reforms.
The civil rights lawsuit was filed on behalf of potentially “hundreds, if not thousands” of people it claims have been victimized by officers over the last three years, including while protesting last year in the wake of the revelation of the death of Daniel Prude, a Black man who lost consciousness and died after being pinned, naked, to the street by officers responding to a mental health call.
The suit, which asks for class status, describes a pattern of “deliberate indifference” by officials going back more than 40 years.
“The city needs to stop aiding in the discrimination, murder and abuse of Black and brown folks. There has been enough talk about reform, the time to take action is now,” said plaintiff Winona Miller, 52, who said she was tightly handcuffed and kneed in the stomach while being arrested during a peaceful protest in front of City Hall in September. Charges of disorderly conduct were dismissed the following month.
The 96-page lawsuit names Mayor Lovely Warren and former Police Chief La’Ron Singletary, who was fired in the fallout from Prude’s death. Other defendants include the city of Rochester, Monroe County and various unidentified police officers, sheriff’s deputies and New York state troopers.
“Defendants agreed among themselves and with other individuals to act in concert in order to deprive plaintiffs of their constitutional rights, including but not limited to their right to be free from excessive force, their right to equal protection of the law, and their right to free speech,” according to the filing in U.S. District Court in Rochester.
A police reform plan recently approved by the City Council as part of a statewide mandate lacks substance, according to the plaintiffs, and ignored proposals from the Police Accountability Board, a citizen board empowered to investigate misconduct.
The lawsuit requests the appointment of an independent monitor to reform city policing policies.
“This lawsuit is our way to demand a seat at the table and to force real change within the city and RPD,” said plaintiff Stanley Martin, a City Council candidate and organizer with activist group Free the People ROC, one of two groups — along with National Lawyers Guild Rochester — listed as plaintiffs.
In a written response, city spokesperson Justin Roj said the city’s police reform plan, which Gov. Andrew Cuomo required of all communities with law enforcement agencies following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, includes several meaningful reforms. They include giving the mayor power to fire officers for cause and requiring newly hired officers to live in the city.
“Mayor Warren is dedicated to implementing these reforms building upon her record of ensuring that all officers wear and use body-worn cameras, eliminating red light cameras and creating Rochester’s Person In Crisis teams,” Roj said.
He said the police department already has revised the way officers respond to protests.
The lawsuit includes photographs of bruised and bloodied protesters after clashes with police in the days following the September release of police body camera video showing Prude’s detention six months earlier.
“The city, in keeping with its long history, responded with the use of extreme violence and militarized police tactics — including deploying batons, tear gas, flash-bang grenades, armored vehicles, and police dogs — to intimidate the protesters,” according to the filing. “Over the course of just three days Rochester Police Department officers severely injured hundreds of protesters.”
Attorney Katie McCarthy attributed much of the problem to the makeup of the police department, whose officers are mostly white and live outside the city, along with a lack of serious consequences for officers accused of wrongdoing.
“They don’t live here, they don’t pay taxes here but they commute in to police the people and protect the property that isn’t even theirs,” McCarthy said during a video news conference. “There’s a huge disconnect when you have a city that is predominantly Black and brown people being policed by this outside white police force, and that goes back decades.”
The plaintiffs, represented by five law firms, ask the court to prohibit officers from using excessive force and racially biased policing and to end the suppression of peaceful protests.
READ MORE
CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. (photo: Getty)
Newly Disclosed CIA Memo Reveals US Concealed High-Ranking Nazi's Role in Holocaust So He Could Serve as a Cold War Asset
Tim O'Donnell, The Week
O'Donnell writes: "In the years following World War II, the United States and West Germany jointly worked to conceal a high-ranking Nazi official's role in deporting tens of thousands of Jews."
n the years following World War II, the United States and West Germany jointly worked to conceal a high-ranking Nazi official's role in deporting tens of thousands of Jews, newly disclosed intelligence records obtained by German public broadcaster ARD reveal, per The New York Times.
Franz Josef Huber led a large section of the Gestapo — Adolf Hitler's secret police — that stretched across Austria, and his forces worked closely with Adolf Eichmann on the coordination of the deportation of Jews to concentration and extermination camps. Eichmann, famously, was tried and executed in Israel in 1962 for his role in the Holocaust, but Huber dodged that fate, even though he was arrested by American forces in 1945. He was released in 1948 and continued to live out his days in Munich, seemingly avoiding responsibility altogether because he was seen as a potential Cold War asset.
The CIA, for example, believed he could help recruit agents in the Soviet bloc. As one memo from 1953 reads, the agency was "by no means unmindful of the dangers involved in playing around with a Gestapo general," but "we also believe, on the basis of the information now in our possession, that Huber might be profitably used by this organization." The West German intelligence service, the BND, gave him a cover story, and it took 20 years before the agency decided "they could no longer tolerate the connection," the Times writes.
While Huber's story may stand out because of his significant standing within the Third Reich, Prof. Shlomo Shpiro of Israel's Bar-Ilan University explained that "Western intelligence services struggled to recruit reliable anti-communist contacts," which meant they frequently ignored the backgrounds of potential assets. "Many former Nazis took advantage of the new communist threat to secure for themselves both immunity from war crimes prosecution and hefty salaries from U.S. and West German intelligence agencies," he said. Read more at The New York Times.
READ MORE
Detained aid worker Abdulrahman al-Sadhan has been sentenced to 20 years in prison in addition to a subsequent two-decade travel ban. (photo: Areej al-Sadhan)
Biden Administration Denounces Saudi Court Sentencing of Aid Worker to 20 Years in Prison
Middle East Eye
Excerpt: "The United States has condemned a Saudi court's decision to sentence a local aid worker to 20 years in prison for allegedly running an anonymous social media account."
State Department warns 'freedom of expression should never be a punishable offense' after Red Crescent aid worker jailed for allegedly running anonymous social media account
he United States has condemned a Saudi court's decision to sentence a local aid worker to 20 years in prison for allegedly running an anonymous social media account.
The State Department, in a statement on Tuesday, said it was "concerned" over reports that Saudi Arabia's terrorism court sentenced Abdulrahman al-Sadhan to 20 years in prison in addition to a subsequent two-decade travel ban.
"As we have said to Saudi officials at all levels, freedom of expression should never be a punishable offense," the department said, adding that it would be following the case closely throughout any appeals process.
Abdulrahman, 37, was detained in March 2018 from the Red Crescent offices in Riyadh, where he worked. It took a month for his family to be informed of his detention and another three years of being held without trial or charge for the government to levy a court case.
During his initial three years in prison, his family had only been allowed to speak to him once - a one-minute phone call that took place last year.
"My family is devastated," Abdulrahman's sister, Areej al-Sadhan, said in a statement on Tuesday.
"This sentencing is unjust and Abdulrahman should never have been in prison in the first place... We fear that, unless this initial ruling is overturned, we may never see Abdulrahman again. We are calling on officials to help us end our family's suffering and get Abdulrahman back home with us in California where he belongs."
Over last three years, Areej, a US citizen living in San Francisco, had helped elevate her brother's case to the extent that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who represents San Francisco, mentioned him within a statement about the declassified intelligence report on the killing of Jamal Khashoggi in February.
In her statement, Pelosi was critical of the Saudi government, particularly Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who intelligence officials named responsible for the 2018 murder and dismemberment of Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
Ali al-Ahmed, a Saudi critic living in the US, expressed concern that US support for Abdulrahman could have led to the lengthy prison term.
Ahmed, who claims he knew Abdulrahman before his detention, said in a series of Twitter posts that Monday's sentencing was a "test" for Secretary of State Antony Blinken and "his ability to match human rights actions to his statements on it".
"If you cannot succeed with allies, you won't with rivals," Ahmed said in a series of posts to Twitter.
Twitter crackdown
Ahmed himself is connected to the Sadhan case in that the Saudi government is believed to have been alerted to both their Twitter accounts by two former employees of the social media platform who are accused of accessing and passing the details of more than 6,000 users critical of Riyadh to a Saudi official with close ties to the royal family.
Last year, Ahmed filed a US lawsuit seeking damages from Twitter, alleging that many of those exposed have since been killed or tortured.
Similarly, Abdulrahman's disappearance is believed to be a direct result of the actions of the two alleged Twitter spies.
"To reach a point where they hack foreign companies, use spyware, bribe spies to leak information from a company based in a country that is an ally of Saudi Arabia, is really shocking," Abdulrahman's sister told Middle East Eye earlier this year.
Former royal court adviser Saud al-Qahtani alluded to such practices in August 2017, when he used his verified Twitter account to boast that Riyadh had "technical ways" and a "secret I'm not going to say" to track down anonymous accounts.
"Does a pseudonym protect you from the blacklist?" Qahtani tweeted at the time. "No."
The former adviser's profile has since been permanently banned for violating Twitter's manipulation policies. He served as a close aide to the Saudi Crown Prince until he was removed, after being implicated in Khashoggi's murder.
Bethany Alhaidari, the Saudi desk officer at the Freedom Initiative, condemned Abdulrahman's sentencing and said it further highlighted the kingdom's pattern of repression against peaceful human rights activists.
"Abdulrahman's sentencing is part of an alarming and growing pattern in Saudi courts, where peaceful dissent against the government now carries a harsher sentence than even murder or other violent crimes. Peaceful dissent is not terrorism."
In Tuesday's statement, the State Department vowed to continue pressuring the kingdom to come into compliance with international human rights standards.
"We will continue to elevate the role of human rights in our relationship with Saudi Arabia and encourage legal reforms that respect the human rights of all individuals," the department said.
READ MORE
Ghost forest panorama in coastal North Carolina. (photo: Emily Ury)
Sea Level Rise Is Killing Trees on the Atlantic Coast, Creating 'Ghost Forests' Visible From Space
Emily Ury, The Conversation
Ury writes: "Throughout coastal North Carolina, evidence of forest die-off is everywhere."
rekking out to my research sites near North Carolina's Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, I slog through knee-deep water on a section of trail that is completely submerged. Permanent flooding has become commonplace on this low-lying peninsula, nestled behind North Carolina's Outer Banks. The trees growing in the water are small and stunted. Many are dead.
Throughout coastal North Carolina, evidence of forest die-off is everywhere. Nearly every roadside ditch I pass while driving around the region is lined with dead or dying trees.
As an ecologist studying wetland response to sea level rise, I know this flooding is evidence that climate change is altering landscapes along the Atlantic coast. It's emblematic of environmental changes that also threaten wildlife, ecosystems, and local farms and forestry businesses.
Like all living organisms, trees die. But what is happening here is not normal. Large patches of trees are dying simultaneously, and saplings aren't growing to take their place. And it's not just a local issue: Seawater is raising salt levels in coastal woodlands along the entire Atlantic Coastal Plain, from Maine to Florida. Huge swaths of contiguous forest are dying. They're now known in the scientific community as "ghost forests."
The Insidious Role of Salt
Sea level rise driven by climate change is making wetlands wetter in many parts of the world. It's also making them saltier.
In 2016 I began working in a forested North Carolina wetland to study the effect of salt on its plants and soils. Every couple of months, I suit up in heavy rubber waders and a mesh shirt for protection from biting insects, and haul over 100 pounds of salt and other equipment out along the flooded trail to my research site. We are salting an area about the size of a tennis court, seeking to mimic the effects of sea level rise.
After two years of effort, the salt didn't seem to be affecting the plants or soil processes that we were monitoring. I realized that instead of waiting around for our experimental salt to slowly kill these trees, the question I needed to answer was how many trees had already died, and how much more wetland area was vulnerable. To find answers, I had to go to sites where the trees were already dead.
Rising seas are inundating North Carolina's coast, and saltwater is seeping into wetland soils. Salts move through groundwater during phases when freshwater is depleted, such as during droughts. Saltwater also moves through canals and ditches, penetrating inland with help from wind and high tides. Dead trees with pale trunks, devoid of leaves and limbs, are a telltale sign of high salt levels in the soil. A 2019 report called them "wooden tombstones."
As the trees die, more salt-tolerant shrubs and grasses move in to take their place. In a newly published study that I coauthored with Emily Bernhardt and Justin Wright at Duke University and Xi Yang at the University of Virginia, we show that in North Carolina this shift has been dramatic.
The state's coastal region has suffered a rapid and widespread loss of forest, with cascading impacts on wildlife, including the endangered red wolf and red-cockaded woodpecker. Wetland forests sequester and store large quantities of carbon, so forest die-offs also contribute to further climate change.
Assessing Ghost Forests From Space
To understand where and how quickly these forests are changing, I needed a bird's-eye perspective. This perspective comes from satellites like NASA's Earth Observing System, which are important sources of scientific and environmental data.
Since 1972, Landsat satellites, jointly operated by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey, have captured continuous images of Earth's land surface that reveal both natural and human-induced change. We used Landsat images to quantify changes in coastal vegetation since 1984 and referenced high-resolution Google Earth images to spot ghost forests. Computer analysis helped identify similar patches of dead trees across the entire landscape.
The results were shocking. We found that more than 10% of forested wetland within the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge was lost over the past 35 years. This is federally protected land, with no other human activity that could be killing off the forest.
Rapid sea level rise seems to be outpacing the ability of these forests to adapt to wetter, saltier conditions. Extreme weather events, fueled by climate change, are causing further damage from heavy storms, more frequent hurricanes and drought.
We found that the largest annual loss of forest cover within our study area occurred in 2012, following a period of extreme drought, forest fires and storm surges from Hurricane Irene in August 2011. This triple whammy seemed to have been a tipping point that caused mass tree die-offs across the region.
Should Scientists Fight the Transition or Assist It?
As global sea levels continue to rise, coastal woodlands from the Gulf of Mexico to the Chesapeake Bay and elsewhere around the world could also suffer major losses from saltwater intrusion. Many people in the conservation community are rethinking land management approaches and exploring more adaptive strategies, such as facilitating forests' inevitable transition into salt marshes or other coastal landscapes.
For example, in North Carolina the Nature Conservancy is carrying out some adaptive management approaches, such as creating "living shorelines" made from plants, sand and rock to provide natural buffering from storm surges.
A more radical approach would be to introduce marsh plants that are salt-tolerant in threatened zones. This strategy is controversial because it goes against the desire to try to preserve ecosystems exactly as they are.
But if forests are dying anyway, having a salt marsh is a far better outcome than allowing a wetland to be reduced to open water. While open water isn't inherently bad, it does not provide the many ecological benefits that a salt marsh affords. Proactive management may prolong the lifespan of coastal wetlands, enabling them to continue storing carbon, providing habitat, enhancing water quality and protecting productive farm and forest land in coastal regions.
READ MORE
Contribute to RSN
Update My Monthly Donation
ack in the late '60s when I was a student at UCLA studying martial arts under Bruce Lee, he spoke often and passionately about the harmful way Asian Americans were portrayed on television shows and in movies. How having characters like Hop Sing (Bonanza) and Hey Boy (Have Gun Will Travel) shuffling about happily serving their white bosses gave the impression that Asian males were grateful, sexless servants. Asian women were generally beautiful, demure, sexy servants in need of protection from the gun-toting white males. Bruce did his best to destroy those stereotypes by becoming the virile action hero in Hong Kong movies that Hollywood wouldn’t let him be.
