17 November 22
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Behind the scorching rhetoric lay an important point about precedent and accountability.
Tuesday’s decision in SisterSong v. Georgia revolved around the LIFE Act, which Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed into law in April 2019. The measure was a reaction to Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s ascendence to the Supreme Court and a test case designed to goad the new majority into overturning Roe. It prohibited abortion at about six weeks of pregnancy, meaning two weeks after the earliest point a patient might discover they’re pregnant.
At the time, any law that banned abortion before fetal viability was flatly unconstitutional under the Supreme Court’s decisions in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and a federal judge halted the law. In June 2022, of course, the Supreme Court overturned Roe and Casey in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Less than one month later, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit allowed the LIFE Act to take effect.
Because there is no longer a federal right to abortion, the plaintiffs turned to state court, arguing that the ban violates the Georgia Constitution. The plaintiffs did not, however, rest their claim on the contested theory that the state constitution protects reproductive rights. Instead, they zeroed in on a theory long recognized under Georgia law called the “void ab initio” doctrine. Under this rule, which is at least 122 years old, a statute’s constitutionality must be assessed based on “the date of its passage.” If a statute was unconstitutional when signed into law, it is permanently unconstitutional and “forever void.” This principle is not just some technicality; it is so well established that the Georgia Supreme Court has created special rules for its application when the state adopts a new constitution.
The void ab initio doctrine has obvious application in SisterSong. As McBurney explained, “The proper legal milieu in which to assess the LIFE Act’s constitutionality is not our current post-Roe Dobbsian era but rather the legal environment that existed” when it was enacted. “At that time—the spring of 2019—everywhere in America, including Georgia, it was unequivocally unconstitutional” to outlaw pre-viability abortions. That means that the LIFE Act “did not become the law of Georgia when it was enacted and it is not the law of Georgia now.”
In defending the ban, Georgia lawyers deployed an almost metaphysical argument to get around this problem: They argued that “there was never a federal constitutional right to abortion,” because Roe and Casey were always wrong. In their view, the LIFE Act was not void when it passed, but rather the victim of a mistaken and now-abandoned line of Supreme Court precedent—one that, according to the absurd logic of their argument, never held the true force of law.
It was this claim that prompted McBurney to explain, in cynical and blistering terms, why Georgia’s theory is mistaken. For 50 years, he wrote, the Supreme Court recognized a right to abortion. “Those prior pronouncements carried no lesser effect and were entitled to no less deference in Georgia or anywhere else in the Republic than that which we all must afford the Dobbs decision.” But Dobbs does not retroactively revoke the force or legitimacy of the decisions it overruled. “Dobbs’ authority flows not from some mystical higher wisdom,” McBurney wrote, “but instead basic math.” He continued:
The Dobbs majority is not somehow “more correct” than the majority that birthed Roe or Casey. Despite its frothy language disparaging the views espoused by previous Justices, the magic of Dobbs is not its special insight into historical “facts” or its monopoly on constitutional hermeneutics. It is simply numbers. More Justices today believe that the U.S. Constitution does not protect a woman’s right to choose what to do with her body than did in that same institution 50 years ago. This new majority has provided our nation with a revised (and controlling) interpretation of what the unchanged words of the U.S. Constitution really mean. And until that interpretation changes again, it is the law.
In other words, five justices changed the controlling interpretation of the Constitution in Dobbs, but they didn’t erase the previous era of interpretation from the law books. Lower courts must apply that new meaning. But these five justices did not—and could not—go back in time to repudiate Roe and Casey when they remained binding precedent. These decisions were not void from the start, as Georgia insisted. They were the authoritative law of the land, and their reversal hasn’t changed that fact.
Certainly, McBurney did not attempt to conceal his own contempt for Dobbs. The pointed quotation marks (“historical ‘facts’ ”) gesture toward the majority’s butchering of history. The sardonic quips indicate displeasure with Justice Samuel Alito’s strident and angry assault on women’s equality. But this rhetoric should not distract from McBurney’s fundamentally sound conclusion. Georgia wants the courts to adopt the legal fiction that Roe and Casey were never really law. Under Georgia Supreme Court precedent, courts cannot oblige. The LIFE Act was “void at birth,” so it cannot “somehow spring to life because of a change in constitutional exegesis coming from a higher court.”
It’s tough to say whether today’s Georgia Supreme Court will affirm McBurney’s decision. The court leans right and may be inclined to avoid the thicket of abortion politics. Even if the decision stands, though, that’s not the end of the LIFE Act. The state legislature may pass a new law severely restricting abortion, reenacting the LIFE Act or even a more stringent ban. After this past midterm election, Republicans still hold a monopoly on power in the governor’s mansion and the state legislature and could likely muster the votes to pass the bill again. But the legislature must also face the consequences of its actions rather than relying on the judiciary to curtail its extremism. This time around, legislators—and their constituents—will know that whatever ban they pass will take effect.
In that sense, the void ab initio doctrine is a tool of accountability. Lawmakers cannot evade responsibility for their votes by enacting an unconstitutional law on the hunch that, at some point in the future, five justices will change the meaning of the Constitution. McBurney’s ruling is not “judicial supremacy run amok,” as Georgia lawyers complained. It is a straightforward requirement that the legislature’s acts comply with the Constitution that exists at that moment rather than the Constitution it hopes will exist in the future.
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"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announces that she will step down as the Democratic Party's leader in the chamber in Washington, D.C., Nov. 17, 2022." (photo: Carolyn Kaster/AP)
Pelosi, 82, has been the Democratic leader for two decades. She is expected to remain a member of the House, at least temporarily.
“With great confidence in our caucus I will not seek re-election to Democratic leadership in the next Congress," Pelosi said in a speech on the House floor.
Pelosi was speaker from 2007 to 2011 and returned to the top job in 2019. She announced her decision just a day after NBC News and other news outlets projected that Republicans had flipped control of the House in last week’s midterm election, sending Pelosi and the Democrats back to the minority.
More personally, just weeks ago, her husband of nearly 60 years, Paul Pelosi, survived an assault by a hammer-wielding intruder at the family’s home in San Francisco.
Pelosi won't be leaving Congress after winning her 19th term last week. She is expected to remain, at least temporarily, given the GOP’s razor-thin majority.
As Pelosi took the mic, the chamber was packed with Democratic lawmakers, while the Republican side of the aisle was largely empty — a symbol of how politics have changed over Pelosi’s three and a half decades in the House. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., did not attend or watch the speech, citing "meetings," but House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., was present. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., crossed the Capitol to watch Pelosi speak, while the front row on the Democratic side of the chamber was filled with fellow female lawmakers from California.
Pelosi, 82, is one of the most powerful lawmakers of her generation or any other, and her departure will rob Democrats of strategic acumen and unmatched fundraising skills.
“She’s been at the center of the country’s biggest crises, initiatives and showdowns for a quarter-century,” Pelosi biographer Susan Page said. “People can certainly disagree with her policies and her tactics. She hasn’t done much to temper the partisan tone in Washington. But what you can’t disagree with is this: She has gotten things done, even when almost everybody else thought they were impossible.”
Pelosi's decision is expected to kick off a wave of generational change in Democratic leadership. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, 83, also announced Thursday that he will not seek another term in leadership. And Majority Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina, 82, will not seek any of the top three spots in leadership, but has indicated that he plans to stay on in an “advisory” role.
Pelosi nodded at the coming changing of the guard in her speech. "For me, the hour’s come for a new generation to lead the Democratic Caucus that I so deeply respect and I’m so grateful that so many are ready and willing to shoulder this awesome responsibility."
Pelosi was a central player in passing the most significant laws in recent history, from President Barack Obama’s signature health insurance measure and President Joe Biden’s climate change initiative to President George W. Bush’s Wall Street bailout and President Donald Trump’s Covid-19 rescue programs.
"I have enjoyed working with three presidents achieving historic investments in clean energy with President George Bush, transformative health care reform with President Barack Obama and forging the future from infrastructure to health care to climate action with President Joe Biden," Pelosi said in her speech Thursday; she did not mention Trump.
Her legacy is also one of institutional leadership outside the lines of policy. As she and other congressional leaders took refuge from rioters during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, Pelosi coordinated with Vice President Mike Pence, Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., then the Senate majority leader, and law enforcement to ensure the building would be cleared and Biden’s election would be certified that day.
The attempt to sack the Capitol led Pelosi to start a record second impeachment of Trump during his final days in office.
“She will go down in history, without equivocation, as the strongest, most effective, most powerful speaker the country has ever had. And her talents and skills are unmatched,” Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., a top ally who represents a Bay Area district next to Pelosi’s, told NBC News. “So I feel very fortunate to have served under her because I don’t think we’ll see anything like it again.”
President Joe Biden spoke with Pelosi Thursday morning and congratulated her on her historic tenure as speaker, the White House said.
"Because of Nancy Pelosi, the lives of millions and millions of Americans are better, even in districts represented by Republicans who voted against her bills and too often vilify her," the president said in a statement. "That’s Nancy — always working for the dignity of all of the people."
Political boss
Elected to the House in 1987 from a San Francisco-based district, Pelosi, the daughter and sister of Baltimore mayors, rose through the ranks of the House — from seats on its powerful spending and intelligence panels to Democratic whip, minority leader and speaker — on the strength of acute political instincts, big-time fundraising for a member of Congress and the ability to unify factions of an often-fractious caucus.
Colleagues have long pointed to her upbringing in old-school city machine politics — she kept a “favor file” for her father — to explain what often seemed like an innate sense of how to reward, punish and cajole them to win support in leadership elections and on the legislative battlefield.
In her speech Thursday, Pelosi referred to her first trips to the Capitol with her father, Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., when he represented Maryland in the House. “When I first came to the floor at 6 years old, never would I have thought that someday I would go from homemaker to House Speaker,” she said.
“She is the single best at the inside game that I’ve ever seen or served with,” said Rep. Brendan Boyle, D-Pa. “She remembers every time a person has been with her on a vote and every time a person has been against her, and that memory is very important in that type of a position.”
The fear of reprisal is one reason Pelosi hasn’t been seriously challenged in a leadership election since she first won the post of Democratic whip over Hoyer in 2001. Since 2003, she has been her party’s leader in the House, the longest streak in either party since Speaker Sam Rayburn, D-Texas, who died in 1961 after 25 years running his party.
“For a woman, she’s opened the doors wider for every last one of us,” said Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., who grew emotional talking about Pelosi. “And it’s not pleasant being on the other side of her, but I thank her for everything that she’s done.”
Early in her career, Pelosi demonstrated a rare touch for influencing colleagues.
When former Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., a progressive, launched a campaign for the chairmanship of the Appropriations Committee in 1994, Pelosi helped him whip votes to win the gavel, even though he wasn’t the most senior member of the panel. The key, he said, was her knowledge of members’ interests and personalities.
“She had a book on everybody in her mind,” Obey recalled in a telephone interview Thursday. “She understood what made each member tick.”
Obey, who would later return the favor by supporting Pelosi’s leadership bids, called her “virtually irreplaceable.”
But Pelosi’s longevity ultimately became a liability. Before the midterm elections, some of her fellow Democrats, including moderate Reps. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, openly called for fresh blood in the ranks of party leadership.
The calls continued in the days after the election — even with control of the House undecided.
“Whether we hold the majority or lose it by one to five seats, it’s time for a new generation of leadership. Period,” Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., said shortly after the midterm elections.
Pelosi’s successor
The race to succeed Pelosi, as Democrats settle back into the minority after modest losses in this month’s midterm elections, is expected to feature a series of next-generation candidates. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, 52, the Democratic Caucus chairman, has been considered Pelosi’s heir apparent, and he would become the highest-ranking Black lawmaker in history if he were to win.
Pelosi has not indicated who she would like to see replace her as leader, but Hoyer and Clyburn both endorsed Jeffries on Thursday. Hoyer called the Brooklyn Democrat "a skilled and capable leader who will help us win back the Majority in 2024" and noted "he will make history for the institution of the House and for our country" if elected leader. Clyburn also endorsed Reps. Katherine Clark, D-Mass., and Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., for the No. 2 and No. 3 leadership spots, respectively.
Pelosi led Democrats to their first majority in a dozen years when they caught a blue wave in the 2006 midterm elections. Her colleagues rewarded her by making her speaker, a position she used to highlight America’s struggles in the Iraq War and the Bush administration’s role in the 2008 housing and finance industry crisis.
When Obama won the presidency that year, Pelosi and House Democrats expanded their majority. With newfound power and a Democratic Senate, they delivered an economic stimulus package, the so-called Dodd-Frank Wall Street regulations and the centerpiece of Obama’s agenda, the Affordable Care Act. Pelosi was particularly instrumental in squeezing the latter program into law, negotiating among centrist Blue Dog Democrats, her party’s dominant progressive wing and the bishops of her own Roman Catholic religion.
“Somebody asked me if this was a victory for Barack Obama. It’s not. This victory belongs to her,” Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., the chairwoman of the Rules Committee at the time, said when the first version passed in the House. “As far as I know she never sleeps nor eats.”
The backlash to Obamacare helped Republicans knock Democrats out of power in the 2010 midterm elections, but Pelosi, with a smaller and more progressive caucus, held on to the reins of the party. She did it despite having been featured in millions of dollars of advertising against House Democratic candidates.
Eight years later, after Trump and Republicans tried to repeal Obamacare, she led Democrats to a midterm victory and was restored to the speakership.
"Vitaliy Mysharskiy, 14, and his grandmother Tanya Babii sit in the yard of the family house in the recently liberated village of Kyselivka, outskirts of Kherson, Nov. 15, 2022." (photo: Bernat Armangue/AP)
“I thought I was going to die,” he told The Associated Press.
In September, Babenko and his 14-year-old nephew, Vitaliy Mysharskiy, were arrested by Russian soldiers who occupied his village of Kyselivka in Ukraine’s southern region of Kherson. They had been taking photos of destroyed tanks and sending them to the Ukrainian army.
Seated this week on a bench outside his home, Babenko was visibly shaken as he recounted the trauma of being thrown into a car, driven to the city of Kherson and interrogated until he confessed.
As violence escalates in Ukraine, abuses perpetrated by Russia have become widespread, according to the United Nations and human rights groups. The situation is particularly concerning in the Kherson region, where hundreds of villages, including the main city, were liberated from Russian occupation in early November. It was one of Ukraine’s biggest successes in the nearly 9-month-old war, dealing another stinging blow to the Kremlin.
The U.N. says it is attempting to verify allegations of nearly 90 cases of enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions in Kherson, and is trying to understand if the scale of abuse is larger than already documented.
Ukrainian officials have opened more than 430 war crimes cases from the Kherson region and are investigating four alleged torture sites, Denys Monastyrskyi, Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs, told state television.
Authorities have found 63 bodies bearing signs of torture near Kherson, Monastyrskyi said. He did not elaborate, saying the investigation into potential war crimes in the region was just beginning.
On Wednesday, Associated Press reporters saw the inside of one of these alleged torture sites in a police-run detention center in Kherson.
Russian soldiers appeared to have left hastily, leaving flags and portraits of Russian President Vladimir Putin scattered under broken glass on the floor. Neighbors described a steady flow of people in handcuffs being brought in, with bags over their heads. The ones who were allowed to leave walked out without shoes or personal effects.
Maksym Nehrov spent his 45th birthday in the jail, detained by Russians because he was a former soldier.
“The most terrifying thing was to hear other people being tortured all day,” he said.
Walking along the corridor of the now-empty prison, he recalled that every time he somehow disobeyed the Russians they would hit him with an electric shock to the neck and head.
Throughout the war, liberated Ukrainian villages have revealed thousands of human rights atrocities perpetrated by Russian soldiers. Bodies were strewn across the streets in Bucha and Irpin, suburbs of the capital, Kyiv, after Russia withdrew in April.
Rights groups say it’s too early to know if the abuses in Kherson were on the same level as in other liberated areas but that it’s very likely.
“In all occupied areas that we’ve been able to access, we’ve documented incidents of torture, extrajudicial killings and torture. And we’re very concerned Kherson will be no different,” Belkis Wille, senior crisis and conflict researcher at Human Rights Watch, told the AP.
The group has documented unlawful attacks on civilians, torture and forcible disappearances of civilians in occupied areas around the country.
Since Russian forces pulled back on Nov. 10, residents in the nondescript town of Kyselivka who endured abuses are struggling to pick up the pieces of their lives.
After Babenko and his nephew returned home — at a time when his village was still under Russian occupation — he was too terrified to leave the house. He was haunted by what he’d endured. While detained, Russian soldiers interrogated him repeatedly, kicking and punching his ribs, nose and stomach almost daily, he said.
His young nephew escaped such abuse but was told he would become a Russian citizen and be protected. The two were released after confessing to what they’d done on video, they said.
But others in their village haven’t been as lucky.
Two months ago, the godfather of Alla Protsenko’s son was taken from his home by Russian soldiers and hasn’t been seen since. Walking through the partially destroyed school where she used to teach before the Russians turned it into an army base, Protsenko said she has combed the country looking for him, to no avail.
The last time the 52-year-old saw him was on her birthday, one week before he disappeared.
“I remember him smiling as if to say: ‘Hold on, everything will be fine,’” she said. “For me, he is still alive. I can’t accept that now (perhaps), he is gone.”
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"Pro-choice activists protest on May 3 in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., in response to the leaked Supreme Court draft decision to overturn Roe v. Wade." (photo: Alex Wong/Getty)
The June 26, 2022, document circulated days after the Roe decision was produced by the department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis and provides updates on what each part of the office is doing in the wake of the SCOTUS decision. “[The Office of Intelligence and Analysis] will continue to monitor this event for any additional information, social media reactions, reflections, and possible threats of violence in response to this event,” it states.
A DHS official said the agency is allowed to collect online posts that would normally be considered protected speech if it determines there is a larger potential national security threat.
This comes as the department is under intense scrutiny by Congress for its social media monitoring activities, including how it tracks and collects what it determines is misinformation or disinformation.
On Tuesday, Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas stressed in his testimony before Congress that the work being done by his department followed privacy guidelines and First Amendment protections.
The monitoring of social media reactions and reflections in the wake of the Roe reversal was conducted in June, during Mayorkas’s tenure.
The bulletin also comes as the U.S. Senate released a report on DHS and FBI’s domestic terrorism response that is highly critical of DHS’s social media monitoring programs.
The report was released Wednesday by Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., the head of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which is holding a hearing Thursday at which Mayorkas will testify alongside FBI Director Chris Wray.
It calls on DHS and other agencies to “clarify and improve federal agency guidelines on the use of social media while respecting individuals’ constitutional rights."
In response to a request from Peters for more information, DHS said that it had “expanded its evaluation of online activity as part of efforts to assess and prevent acts of violence, in ways that ensure robust protections for Americans’ privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties," according to the Senate report.
But the monitoring of social media reflections and reactions appears to contradict DHS’s claims.
The report also calls on agencies to develop guidance that “must comply with protections in federal law and constitutional limitations, including the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments, and the agencies should be transparent about what data they use regarding social media.”
Civil liberties advocates said they were alarmed to learn that DHS’ Office of Intelligence and Analysis is monitoring protected speech.
“It is alarming to see that I…A intends to monitor ‘social media reactions’ to the release of the Supreme Court’s opinion overturning Roe v. Wade,” said Rachel Levinson-Waldman, managing director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, who reviewed the bulletin for Yahoo News.
“The document does not disclose whose social media I…A intends to monitor, what reactions it is looking for, or what types of social media postings would warrant inclusion in a follow-up situation report,” she said. “Even if some threats are floating around in the sea of social media, searching for 'reactions' to the decision will inevitably produce a volume of sensitive information that swamps the tiny amount of relevant data, all while jeopardizing Americans’ rights to free speech and freedom of association and risking delegitimization of political discourse.”
Levinson-Waldman added that “with DHS’s nationwide audience of tens of thousands of law enforcement officers, it is unclear who will receive this U.S. Intelligence Community report and how local agencies are supposed to use reactions to current events to police their citizens."
“If this exercise of authority is justified by I…A’s oversight guidelines, it's just further proof that the guidelines authorize far too much intrusive data-gathering and that DHS has become untethered from its intended mission.”
The former head of DHS’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis told Yahoo News it’s critical that those doing this work know the difference between protected speech and a potential threat.
“Efforts to prevent acts of targeted violence benefit significantly when law enforcement or security officials evaluate content on violent extremist or other threat actor online forums,” said John Cohen, former DHS acting undersecretary of intelligence and analysis. “The challenge is that analysts must distinguish between protected speech and threat-related activity.”
DHS’s Office of Inspector General issued several reports this year detailing issues with the way the department collects open-source information, including social media posts.
On July 6, the inspector general issued a report titled, “The Office of Intelligence and Analysis Needs to Improve Its Open Source Intelligence Reporting.”
“Even after their initial training, collectors we spoke with were not certain whether, in their day-to-day operations, they adhered to privacy protections and protected speech,” it states.
The report called on the department to improve trainings for analysts who collect this kind of information, including social media posts. Mayorkas agreed with this recommendation, the report notes.
In response to questions about DHS’s monitoring of social media reactions and reflections, a DHS spokesperson emailed a statement to Yahoo News:
“The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I…A) is authorized by statute and executive order to evaluate publicly available information in support of its authorized missions and consistent with intelligence oversight guidelines approved by the Attorney General, which ensure protections for privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties,” the statement said, noting that “I…A regularly shares information with federal, state, and local law enforcement partners to prevent, protect against, or better respond to targeted violence and terrorism.”
When asked about the Senate report issued Wednesday, a DHS spokesperson told Yahoo News in an email that, “Addressing domestic violent extremism is a top priority for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). DHS engages in a community-based approach to prevent terrorism and targeted violence, and does so in ways that protect privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties, and that adhere to all applicable laws."
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"Migrants arrive on a bus from Texas in Philadelphia on Wednesday." (photo: Joe Lamberti/AP)
The 10-year-old girl was sent to the hospital with a high fever after a busload of more than two dozen migrants arrived in Philadelphia, city officials said.
The bus carried 28 people in total, five of them children, Philadelphia officials said at a news conference Wednesday. Abbott’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the child.
Philadelphia City Council member Helen Gym, a Democrat, told NBC Philadelphia that "it’s one of the more inhumane aspects that they would put a child who was dehydrated with a fever now, a very high fever," on the bus.
Abbott, a Republican who was re-elected to a third term last week, announced in a news release Tuesday that his administration would be sending migrants to Philadelphia from his state for the first time Wednesday.
"Until the Biden Administration does its job and provides Texans and the American people with sustainable border security, Texas will continue doing more than any other state in the nation’s history to defend against an invasion along the border, including adding more sanctuary cities like Philadelphia as drop-off locations for our busing strategy," he said.
Abbott's office said Philadelphia is an "ideal addition to Texas' list of drop-off locations" for migrants because, it said, the city's mayor, Jim Kenney, "has long-celebrated and fought for sanctuary city status."
Kenney, a Democrat, expressed outrage Wednesday at Abbott for his tactics. Kenney said his office was told last week that a bus of about 30 asylum-seekers would be expected to travel to his city from Del Rio, Texas, but he said Texas officials did not coordinate their arrival.
"This information was confirmed late yesterday without coordination or warning by Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s office through a press release," Kenney said at the city officials' news conference. "It’s not just unproductive and disappointing, but downright irresponsible and callous to do this unannounced and without coordination, showing blatant disregard for the sanctity of human lives."
Kenney emphasized that the migrants are welcome in Philadelphia, saying officials are "focused as ever on welcoming and supporting anyone who wants to visit or live in our great city."
"Gov. Abbott and his administration continue to implement their cruel and racist policies," he continued, saying Abbott is "using immigrant families, including children, as pawns to shamelessly push their warped political agenda."
Abbott warned President Joe Biden in a letter Wednesday that Texas would ramp up its efforts to deal with the influx of migrants. He said Biden must implement or reinstate policies that enforce federal immigration laws "and protect the states against invasion."
"Two years of inaction on your part now leave Texas with no choice but to escalate our efforts to secure our State," the letter said. "Your open-border policies, which have catalyzed an unprecedented crisis of illegal immigration, are the sole cause of Texas having to invoke our constitutional authority to defend ourselves."
A federal judge ruled Tuesday that the U.S. government can no longer use a Trump-era policy that allowed authorities to severely limit asylum-seekers from crossing the border into the country during the height of the Covid pandemic. The Biden administration, which has sought to end the policy, said later Tuesday it wouldn't oppose the judge's order.
In recent months, Abbott has repeatedly sent migrants on buses from Texas to other major cities, including New York and Washington, D.C. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has made similar efforts.
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"Musk has fired as many as 14 Twitter employees for tweets, Slack messages." (photo: Mike Blake/Reuters)
As many as 14 Twitter employees fired for tweets, Slack messages.
Workers told The Verge that under Musk, Twitter has transformed into an “openly hostile” environment. And Musk—who already told employees that he would be relying on his paranoia to push through this difficult time—has possibly become so paranoid about Twitter engineers messing with Twitter code, he’s taken the drastic step of freezing them out from altering it. This happened during an “emergency meeting” held at 1:45 am on Monday, and Musk has provided no other explanation for the code freeze, The Verge reported.
Meanwhile, Musk has started turning to Twitter as a platform to publicly discuss his concerns and questions about how Twitter functions—rather than discussing privately with Twitter engineers. This appears to be the breaking point that one Twitter employee told The Verge felt so “degrading” to Twitter staff, leading multiple Twitter engineers to correct Musk’s ignorant tweets publicly.
Most visibly, Twitter engineer Eric Frohnhoefer became the first Twitter employee that Musk fired by tweet when he responded to Musk’s incorrect tweet explaining why Twitter was slow on Android.
“I have spent ~6yrs working on Twitter for Android and can say this is wrong,” Frohnhoefer said in a now-deleted tweet.
Musk then had an exchange with Frohnhoefer that many felt could’ve best been had as an internal Twitter discussion. Instead, Frohnhoefer took the opportunity to chat with his boss publicly and responded professionally, sharing with Musk what he thinks would help improve Twitter for Android services. And though Musk later seemed to agree with some of Frohnhoefer’s suggestions, posting that he'd be implementing some of the solutions, the engineer was fired that day, with no official notice—except a tweet from Musk saying, “he’s fired.” When another Twitter employee shared this Musk tweet on the company Slack, Frohnhoefer still had access to see it, and he reportedly responded by saying, “News to me.”
Frohnhoefer wasn’t the only Twitter engineer who seemed to have reached his limit of patience with Musk’s leadership style. Another engineer who worked at Twitter for a decade, Ben Leib, told Bloomberg that he was fired on Sunday after also responding to the same Musk tweet. The tone of Leib's tweet reflects what The Verge reported is a growing solidarity between Twitter’s frustrated remaining staff against the hostility of Musk’s management style.
“As the former tech lead for timelines infrastructure at Twitter, I can confidently say this man has no idea wtf he's talking about,” Leib tweeted.
Ars could not immediately reach Frohnhoefer or Leib for comment.
Slack firings and stock options
As the number of Twitter staff fired for tweets grows to at least four, Big Tech reporter Gergely Orosz tweeted that the remaining staff must also watch what they say in Slack. Before Musk’s takeover, the culture at Twitter encouraged staff to be critical in the company Slack, Bloomberg reported. Any employee who thought they were still free to do that now seemingly risks learning the hard way that being critical about Twitter is no longer an option under Musk's leadership.
“Another ~10 Twitter employees who made sassy or critical remarks about Twitter's current leadership on a Twitter internal Slack channel have been terminated overnight,” Orosz tweeted. “One person was told they are let go ‘for recent behavior.’”
At Twitter, a line seems to have been drawn between Twitter staff and Musk’s advisers and engineers brought in from Tesla and the Boring Company, The Verge reported, and while some of this discord is spilling out onto Twitter publicly, more is leaking out via shared screenshots of the company’s Slack. Things that probably irk Musk include Twitter staff referring to Musk’s trusted outsiders as “the goons” on Slack. One Twitter employee posted on Slack, vaguely summarizing how Musk had shattered team morale: “I’m wondering when people will realize the value of Twitter was the people that worked here.”
Musk has said that he will grant access to code to engineers who need to make urgent changes on a case-by-case basis. But rather than talk to engineers about changes Musk might consider urgent, Musk appears to be fielding some of his questions about Twitter functionality from random Twitter users.
Publicly demonstrating his distrust for Twitter engineers, firing those who criticize him, and freezing out people most knowledgeable of Twitter’s products and services, Orosz tweeted, gives Twitter engineers little reason to stick around and rally around Musk.
“Serious question: outside of outsized, unvested stock on the line or high compensation, why would any software engineer with options consider working at Twitter, going forward?” Orosz tweeted.
It appears Musk has been eyeing stock and options for employees as one potential strategy for retention. CNBC reviewed an internal memo showing that Musk told Twitter employees Monday that “they can receive stock and options as part of an ongoing compensation plan.”
To encourage the “hardcore” work ethic that Musk told Twitter staff they must embrace to remain on his team, Musk said that people who do “exceptional” work could expect to receive “exceptional amounts” of shares. This, Musk said, is how he runs SpaceX, granting SpaceX employees stock awards on May 15 and November 15, CNBC reported.
It’s unclear, though, if stock awards would actually be meaningful enough to keep Twitter employees around, as they’re watching Musk struggle to make Twitter profitable with a much-reduced staff. The Verge reported that one Twitter employee said on the company Slack, “In 2 weeks Twitter has gone from being the most welcoming and healthy workplace I’ve ever known to the most openly hostile and degrading I’ve ever known.”
Firing employees for being critical of their new leader is one thing, but at least two employees said they got fired just for “shitposting”—commenting in an off-topic way, simply to provoke reactions—which is arguably Musk’s favorite part of being on Twitter. It seems on top of risking termination for being critical, employees also risk termination for being funny.
As Musk struggles to control what he perceives as insubordination, the director of Fight for the Future (an activist group dedicated to defending human rights online), Evan Greer, tweeted days ago to encourage Twitter staff to keep showing solidarity.
“Honestly at this point Twitter employees should just occupy the headquarters, refuse to work, call for solidarity from labor / activists / Twitter users and see how long Musk wants to sit around burning his personal fortune,” Greer said. “He would have absolutely no clue how to respond to this.”
Twitter has an ethics hotline where employees can report workplace concerns, but that has likely become harder to trust amid the brewing tension between leadership and Twitter staff. There is also a class-action lawsuit moving forward in California, seeking an emergency hearing to secure a court order requiring Twitter to notify staff of their eligibility to join the lawsuit. The lawyer for staff suing, Shannon Liss-Riordan, told Ars that they're expecting that hearing to be scheduled soon.
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"Alaa Abd el-Fattah is in prison in Egypt." (photo: Omar Robert Hamilton/Reuters)
Conference in Sharm el-Sheikh follows decade-long crackdown on civil society in Egypt
“I just want to tell everyone about the injustice happening in Egypt. I can’t do it personally and I’m trying to do it with my work. I’m even helping others who are able to travel there to do this,” he said.
Many Egyptian environmentalists, human rights defenders, researchers and activists exiled from their country are watching protests and the vanishingly rare opportunity to discuss civil rights in Sharm el-Sheikh from afar, as returning would put them at risk of detention.
The hundreds of exiles combined with the estimated 65,000 political prisoners inside Egypt’s sprawling detention systemand the Egyptian government’s attempt to bar dozens of domestic civil society groups means many voices from Egypt are excluded from the conference.
Another activist, who asked to remain anonymous, also spoke of fears that a return meant instant arrest. “If you go back, you’re going to get arrested, or if not then you’ll be placed under a travel ban so you can’t leave Egypt and continue your life or work,” she said.
The news that Egypt would host Cop27 drew surprise, rage, and sometimes guilt at being unable to attend from the activists and researchers interviewed. “My first thought was that … Egypt should not be hosting a conference like this, where civil society pressure and participation are such an essential ingredient,” said the activist.
She pointed to the Egyptian authorities’ use of prison to silence dissenting voices, notably British-Egyptian democracy activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, who began a water strike on the day Cop27 began.
“What’s being missed isn’t just activists in exile, it’s that our best minds are dying in prison,” she said. “It’s these minds that we need for the solutions to the climate crisis, but the Egyptian state is choosing to kill them in prison.”
The conference in Sharm el-Sheikh follows an almost- decade-long crackdown on civil society in Egypt that has targeted almost every form of independent organising, and driven many activists and researchers overseas. Prominent organisations working on civil rights, including climate justice, have been targeted with raids, shutdowns and arrests. The Egyptian authorities have banned non-governmental organisations receiving funding from abroad and strangled their domestic resources, while major heads of prominent civil society groups have been banned from travel and their bank accounts frozen. Multiple researchers have been arrested on arrival in Egyptian airports after returning home for family visits when they lived and studied abroad.
“Even one activist in jail is an intimidation to all against speaking up, but it’s thousands over the years placed in inhumane detention conditions, some facing torture, with other colleagues placed on travel ban lists or finding their assets frozen,” said Magdi.
Threats from the Egyptian security services or their outriders in the country’s media have encompassed both well known international rights groups and individuals. Magdi remembers a prominent television anchor threatening his life after Human Rights Watch published a report about possible war crimes in northern Sinai. “Live on television he said I will be brought back to Egypt and executed,” he said. Major state outlets have labelled him a terrorist for his human rights work, he added.
The former MP Mohamed Anwar al-Sadat, nephew of Egypt’s former president, recently called for Egypt’s youth to return to the country. Hussein Baoumi of Amnesty International was exactly the kind of person Sadat’s call was supposed to resonate with, but he will also be staying away.
“The Egyptian authorities are continuing to arrest opponents and critics, and subject human rights defenders to travel bans,” he said. “They don’t want us back home.”
Baoumi pointed out that the next conference will be in the United Arab Emirates, another country with a troubled record on dissent. The UAE has also aided the Egyptian authorities in deporting Egyptian nationals back to Egypt in the past, raising concerns that the same activists forced to miss Cop27 will have to do the same thing for Cop28.
“From our point of view as Amnesty International we have to engage on the issue of climate, as there’s no time,” said Baoumi. “Even if the Cop is being held in a repressive state, it’s important to go to force the international community to recognise civil society engagement.”
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