Independent News
Georgia is refusing to allow the DOJ to investigate allegations of violence in the state's prisons
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Georgia has long had a problem with its prison system—everything from brutal sexual abuse and assault on LGBTQ inmates, to unchecked gang violence, to the deaths of incarcerated people at the hands of fellow prisoners.
On Mar. 28, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a petition against the state demanding that the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC) comply with a subpoena and hand over documents related to an investigation into a slew of alleged issues. But The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) reports that the GDC is refusing, citing the need for the DOJ to sign a nondisclosure agreement (NDA) in order to maintain the safety of staff and inmates.
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In addition to not allowing DOJ access inside any of the state’s prisons or to speak with inmates or staff, the AJC reports, the DOJ also alleges that thus far, the GDC has given them “only an incomplete set of policies” amounting to “a fraction of those requested,” and “blank form documents,” the filing reads.
In an email sent to the AJC, GDC spokesperson Joan Heath wrote:
“GDC will provide DOJ with the requested information once the DOJ agrees to take the appropriate precautions with these documents. … In the interim, GDC cannot and will not forfeit the safety and security of our staff and offenders.”
On Sept. 14, 2021, the DOJ announced its official investigation into the Georgia prisons in order to explore “whether Georgia provides prisoners reasonable protection from physical harm at the hands of other prisoners,” and “whether Georgia provides lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex prisoners reasonable protection from sexual abuse by other prisoners and by staff.”
According to The Georgia Voice, the DOJ began an investigation based on the case of Ashley Diamond, a transgender woman. In 2015, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) filed a suit on Diamond’s behalf alleging that the GDC denied her doctor-prescribed hormone medication while she was imprisoned and that she’d been sexually assaulted by several inmates.
In a press release at the time, Chinyere Ezie, a staff attorney for SPLC, wrote:
“Ashley Diamond was not sentenced to sexual assault and a gender change when she was imprisoned for a parole violation. … Tragically, the state of Georgia is forcing Ashley to transition from female to male by denying her the protection and medical care she needs. Transgender inmates like Ashley have a right to be kept safe and to receive medically necessary treatment, including hormones.”
The frightening thing is that the GDC is also declining to offer documentation on the homicide rates inside the state’s prisons. AJC reported last month that at least 57 inmates were murdered while imprisoned in Georgia, with 29 deaths in 2020 and 28 in 2021.
Ultimately, the GDC and its attorneys are claiming that the DOJ hasn’t laid out a framework for why it’s investigating the prisons, and that the NDA is vital because privacy is at the center of inmates’ health records.
Meanwhile, according to The Current, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp is pushing to allocate $600 million to begin building two new prisons in exchange for closing four others.
In a January budget report, Kemp wrote: “As our judicial system has focused on providing rehabilitative support in the community where appropriate for low-level, nonviolent offenders to avoid recidivism, our state prison population has become filled with increasingly violent offenders. … Our aging prison facility infrastructure was not intended to house the level of offender who resides there today, and it requires higher levels staffing and facility maintenance to manage these dangerous environments.”
Criminal justice activists argue that Kemp’s $600 million would be better spent on improving mental health facilities and educational programs as a preventative measure to being incarcerated, The Current reports.
Georgia boasts “one of the largest prison systems” in the nation, with nearly 53,000 inmates.
Oh look. Here's Sen. Marsha Blackburn trying and failing to accurately define 'woman'
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Sen. Marsha Blackburn tried to put Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson on the spot with a question that sounded innocent if you have followed absolutely zero coverage of recent U.S. politics, but was intended as a trap on transgender issues that might someday come before the Supreme Court: “Can you define the word ‘woman’?”
”Can I provide a definition?” Jackson replied. “No, I can’t. I’m not a biologist.”
What do you know? She doesn’t have the relevant expertise and was not going to offer an uninformed answer. She has respect for expertise and won’t leap to judgment without hearing from people who know what they’re talking about.
Of course, to Republicans the refusal to fall into the trap laid by a self-righteous pile of hair was itself a problem, because the whole point was to put Jackson in a no-win situation. But, HuffPost found when it turned the question back on some of those same Republicans, they didn’t have great answers themselves.
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Blackburn herself initially refused to respond to the reporters’ questions, then took a little time with it and came back with an email from a spokesperson specifying “Two X chromosomes.” Except, whoops, it’s more complicated than that. A lot more complicated.
Sen. Chuck Grassley took the same “two X chromosomes” approach as Blackburn. Which makes him as wrong as her. Sens. John Kennedy and John Cornyn refused to answer. Sen. Mike Lee said, “An adult female of the human species.” Sen. Ted Cruz answered similarly, saying, “an adult female human” before offering up the “two X chromosomes” answer. Sen. Thom Tillis said his wife is a woman, apparently without specifying whether the definition of a woman requires being exactly like his wife in every regard. Does Tillis think that being a woman requires having touched his own personal penis? Or birthed his children? Or all the other things in between that none of us, literally none of us, want to think about?
The reporters’ exchange with Sen. Josh Hawley was … special.
“Someone who can give birth to a child, a mother, is a woman,” he said. “Someone who has a uterus is a woman. It doesn’t seem that complicated to me.”
So if a woman has her uterus removed by a hysterectomy, is she still a woman?
“Yeah. Well, I don’t know, would they?” he asked. (Yes.)
Asked again later if he would consider a woman to still be a woman if she lost her reproductive organs to cancer, Hawley said: “I mean, a woman has a vagina, right?”
Actually, senator, some women don’t have vaginas. And relatively few women appreciate being defined by them.
As the various failures of the Republican efforts to pin down what exactly a woman is in sciencey-sounding terms show, it’s not that easy to define “woman.” And that’s without even getting into poststructuralist theory, which would lead us to a whole other set of complications.
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson was adept enough to sidestep a Republican trap. But her response wasn’t just a dodge. It acknowledged the importance of science and expertise in accurately answering what might on the surface sound like a simple, straightforward question. That’s an admirable trait in a judge, or a Supreme Court justice.
As a bonus, here’s a small sampling of some science writing on this very complicated issue:
“Stop using phony science to justify transphobia,” by neuroscientist Simón(e) Sun in Scientific American
“The idea of two sexes is simplistic. Biologists now think there is a wider spectrum than that,” by developmental biologist Claire Ainsworth in Nature.
Sex can be much more complicated than it at first seems. According to the simple scenario, the presence or absence of a Y chromosome is what counts: with it, you are male, and without it, you are female. But doctors have long known that some people straddle the boundary—their sex chromosomes say one thing, but their gonads (ovaries or testes) or sexual anatomy say another. Parents of children with these kinds of conditions—known as intersex conditions, or differences or disorders of sex development (DSDs)—often face difficult decisions about whether to bring up their child as a boy or a girl. Some researchers now say that as many as 1 person in 100 has some form of DSD2.
When genetics is taken into consideration, the boundary between the sexes becomes even blurrier. Scientists have identified many of the genes involved in the main forms of DSD, and have uncovered variations in these genes that have subtle effects on a person’s anatomical or physiological sex. What’s more, new technologies in DNA sequencing and cell biology are revealing that almost everyone is, to varying degrees, a patchwork of genetically distinct cells, some with a sex that might not match that of the rest of their body. Some studies even suggest that the sex of each cell drives its behaviour, through a complicated network of molecular interactions. “I think there’s much greater diversity within male or female, and there is certainly an area of overlap where some people can’t easily define themselves within the binary structure,” says John Achermann, who studies sex development and endocrinology at University College London’s Institute of Child Health.
“Male or female? It’s not always so simple,” from the UCLA Newsroom:
People often are unaware of the biological complexity of sex and gender, says Dr. Eric Vilain, director of the Center for Gender-Based Biology at UCLA, where he studies the genetics of sexual development and sex differences. “People tend to define sex in a binary way—either wholly male or wholly female—based on physical appearance or by which sex chromosomes an individual carries. But while sex and gender may seem dichotomous, there are in reality many intermediates.”
Understanding this complexity is critical; misperceptions can affect the health and civil liberties of those who fall outside perceived societal norms, Dr. Vilain says. “Society has categorical views on what should define sex and gender, but the biological reality is just not there to support that.”
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Ukraine update: Spring rains are coming, as Russia is increasingly desperate to show progress
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I picked a good week to go on vacation, as Russia’s defeat at the Battle of Kyiv (and the Battles of Chernihiv and Sumy as well) led to the mass Russian withdrawal from Ukraine’s north over the past week. The horrors they left behind are beyond comprehension, though the Russians may have their own solution to the “problem” of their war-crime’ing rampaging hordes:
[A]n unconfirmed Ukrainian military intelligence report suggests that Moscow could soon send the 64th Motorized Rifle Brigade of the 35th Combined Arms Army, a unit that reportedly committed war crimes in Bucha, into the fight in eastern Ukraine in the hopes that guilty members of that brigade and witnesses of its war crimes are killed in combat with Ukrainian forces
If only this single unit was guilty of all the war crimes. It wasn’t the 64th Motorized Rifle Brigade that bombed hospitals, schools, residential buildings, and other residential non-combat targets in cities around Ukraine. And it’s certainly not the 64th Motorized Rifle Brigade that has turned all of Mariupol into rubble.
There has been much speculation over the last several few days over the fate of those Russian units previously operating near Kyiv. We know that units in the Sumy and Kherson areas have been redeployed toward Izyum, including the remnants of the famed 4th Guards Tank Division (GTD). In fact, if you’re thinking, “I thought half the division was wiped out,” because that’s what I speculated when last writing about them, turns out I was wrong. They’re likely closer to around 40% of their pre-war strength. Russia is throwing the tattered remnants of once-proud units into the meat grinder.
As for those Kyiv-area units, the humane thing would be to disband what’s left and send those soldiers home. Or, at worse, give them a month to recover as their units are rebuilt from reserves. We saw what they left behind after their withdrawal, and by all indications, most of those units are combat ineffective. As the Brits put it, “Russian units that left Kyiv will need significant re-equipping before redeploying to the Donbas.” But what they need and what Russian high command will do are two different things, and the Pentagon estimates that two-thirds of those forces will be redeployed to the Donbas front. In short, this is an act of desperation:
Those forces are broken. And they’re being sent into combat just as intense, if not more so, than what they saw around Kyiv.
At least in Kyiv they were somewhat protected by 1) Ukraine’s defensive posture, and 2) natural river barriers. Yes, they bled and died from repeated ineffective charge after repeated ineffective charge, but it was Ukraine that was in desperate plight, under relentless artillery bombardment and assault. It wasn’t until very recently that they began to face Ukrainian counter-attacks. In Donbas, they face not only the same entrenched enemy, with the same incompetent leadership that will march them to their likely deaths, but also exposed flanks and an aggressive Ukraine able to confidently counter-attack, heavy Ukrainian artillery, and a new generation of battlefield weapons on their way (like Switchblade killer drones). Oh, and they get to do it with poorly maintained equipment from pilfered reserve stock.
Don’t count on Russia’s logistics to get any better, as Ukraine is still doing a great job of taking them out en masse.
(Note the Ukrainian tractor in the upper right, circling in toward the chum.)
Remember all those pictures of trashed supply lines attempting to run through Sumy region to eastern edge of Kyiv? Well, we’re about to see it all over again, as Russia really appears to be attempting the maneuver I mocked just a few days ago:
Instead of a head-on assault on the cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk, they are attempting to loop around and cut them off, over hundreds of kilometers of terrain with exposed flanks on both sides. As I wrote:
Attempting such an exposed push over barren open terrain, through 160 kilometers (100 miles) of hostile territory seems suicidal. That hasn’t stopped Russia before, but it does seem they are trying to reset. Four axes of attack were too much? Okay! Let’s go down to two! Hmmm, I wanted to come up with two more examples, but I’ve got nothing. Maybe “avoid long unsustainable and indefensible supply lines” can be added to the list.
Doesn’t look like we’ll be adding anything to the “Russia learned its lesson” list anytime soon. Here we are now, with Russia behaving … suicidal:
That emerging salient heading south, attempting to cut off dug-in Ukrainian positions, is going to get chewed up like this:
That moonscape open terrain (more good pictures here and here) makes it impossible for Russia to sneak up on anyone, anywhere, and will be a drone operator’s dream come true. Ukrainian artillery can safely operate west of the salient, shooting and scooting, protected by Russia’s fear of flying their planes anywhere covered by air defenses.
Meanwhile, rasputista, that famous Ukrainian mud, is about to show up in a big way. Mud has already had a major impact on the war, as the mild winter kept the ground from being frozen as might’ve been the case pre-climate change. But things are about to get even tougher for armor. Look at the coming forecast for the Izyum area:
Not only are those surprisingly warm temperatures melting off the last of the winter snow, but the spring rains are coming. Expect to see a lot more of this:
Rain will make field maneuvering nearly impossible, restricting Russian armor to roads, making them easy pickings for Ukrainian ambushes, artillery attacks, and drone strikes. On the plus side, it gives any Russian wanting an easy out a clear way to walk away from the war. “Abandoned” Russian equipment is the best Russian equipment. No one dies, Ukraine gets additional equipment and ammunition for its army, and we get to cheer the farmers towing that stuff away.
Note that the rain can be a double-edged sword, restricting Ukraine’s ability to counterattack. So we may be entering a period where nothing much moves, except relentless artillery and air strikes from both sides, trying to degrade static, well-defended positions.
In other words, we’ll be back to what the Donbas front looked like since 2014, except with a bit more territory under Russian control. Has that been worth 20,000 dead, billions in lost equipment, economic devastation, and the international shattering of the Russian bear myth? No matter what Vladimir Putin and his propagandists at home and in the West might say, a stalemate in a region they already controlled is a devastating loss. And desperation to show any progress is clearly leading to stupid decisions, like trying to encircle Sloviansk and Kramatorsk from the west.
Wednesday, Apr 6, 2022 · 4:41:30 PM +00:00
·
Mark Sumner
Ukrainian forces are hitting hard at the northern end of the area Russia has occupied on the western bank of the Dnieper River. Several small towns have been recaptured, but Russia doesn’t seem to be simply fleeing for the bridge at Nova Kakhovka.
Instead, they have pushed forces again along the highway that runs north from Kherson to Snihurivka. That positions these forces directly east of Mykolaiv. If this is a sizable force, it could cause Ukrainian troops to hurry to cut off the threat. If it’s a smaller force — it’s way overextended.
ICE prosecutors may now dismiss low-priority cases, a move that could ease backlogged court
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The Biden administration is directing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) prosecutors to consider dismissing deportation cases deemed low priority by the federal government, in a policy move that could reduce the massively backlogged immigration court system by potentially hundreds of thousands of cases.
Under an April 3 memo, ICE prosecutors are authorized to dismiss cases of the cases of people who have not crossed the border recently and do not pose serious threats. It points to a memo from Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas ensuring “finite DHS resources are used in a way that accomplishes the department’s enforcement mission most effectively and justly.”
“Note that every law enforcement agency does this to focus enforcement resources on serious, important cases, but DHS has not effectively applied it in immigration cases,” tweeted American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) Director of Government Relations Gregory Chen.
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“The memo could be a way to cut the growing immigration court backlog,” BuzzFeed News reported. “The staggering list of cases in immigration court, which number over 1 million, is unsustainable, officials say. Some cases take years to be heard.” CNN reports that perhaps as many as 700,000 cases could be considered low-priority, according to one estimate from AILA. The immigration court backlog is currently the highest it has ever been, according to TRAC Immigration:
“If every person with a pending immigration case were gathered together it would be larger than the population of Philadelphia, the sixth largest city in the United States. Previous administrations—all the way back through at least the George W. Bush administration—have failed when they tried to tackle the seemingly intractable problem of the Immigration Court ‘backlog.’”
By comparison, the backlog was at roughly 150,000 cases at the start of the Bush administration, TRAC Immigration said. The Biden administration noted these years-long delays in announcing a finalized rule allowing asylum officers to handle some cases instead of leaving them solely to immigration judges.
“Due to existing court backlogs, the process for hearing and deciding these asylum cases currently takes several years on average,” officials said last month. “When fully implemented, the reforms and new efficiencies will shorten the process to several months for most asylum applicants covered by this rule.”
House progressives in recommendations last month urged the removal of nonpriority cases, as well as other key actions to protect immigrant families from detention and deportation, including terminating or declining to renew private detention contracts in favor of community-based alternatives, the termination of agreements that allow local law enforcement to act as mass deportation agents, and an end to the debunked Title 42 policy.
Last week, the Biden administration announced the Stephen Miller policy will end by late May. Three GOP states have since sued, because they believe Democratic presidents have no right to govern.
ICE itself has now gone without a Senate-confirmed director for more than five years. While President Biden first put forward Harris County, Texas, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez a year ago, and received a committee hearing in June, his nomination stalled. Failing to receive a full floor vote before the end of 2021, Gonzalez’s nomination expired.
The administration again resubmitted his name in January, but it’s now April and he has yet to receive a confirmation vote. Tae Johnson, the final acting director under the previous administration, continues to remain in that role.
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2021 swept in an 'unprecedented campaign to remove books' from libraries
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It’s not your imagination. In 2021, attempts to ban books reached their highest level since the American Library Association started tracking the issue 20 years ago, with 729 challenges to 1,597 books. The books under attack were overwhelmingly ones by or about Black or LGBTQ people, which matters.
“What we’re seeing right now is an unprecedented campaign to remove books from school libraries but also public libraries that deal with the lives and experiences of people from marginalized communities,” Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the American Library Association’s office for intellectual freedom, told The New York Times. “We’re seeing organized groups go to school boards and library boards and demand actual censorship of these books in order to conform to their moral or political views.”
RELATED STORY: It’s not just ‘Maus.’ Here are some more targets of the rising tide of book-banning
Along with the efforts to get books removed from classrooms and school libraries and, increasingly, public libraries come direct attacks on librarians, in the form of bills that would open them up to criminal charges for having books on the shelves—and in particular available to minors—that some prosecutor somewhere decided were obscene.
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Caldwell-Stone told CNN’s Ronald Brownstein that the library association is “deeply concerned that one of these bills will eventually pass and will be used as a means of both intimidating librarians or actually charging them with crimes—based on this falsehood that mainstream materials, published by mainstream publishers, are somehow ‘illegal speech’ unprotected by the First Amendment.”
While the efforts to take books out of libraries are cloaked in the language of the parental right to decide what their own children will read, Caldwell-Stone explained the distinction between a parent preventing their child from reading a specific book and the demand to remove the book from the library. Libraries, she said, “don’t disagree with parents who want to guide their children’s readings … but they stand firmly opposed to one family dictating what is available to everyone else in a school library or a public library.”
The attacks on books by and about Black and LGBTQ people are part of a Republican culture war effort to whip up their base for November’s elections. But they also have real effects on the kids who are being told they don’t matter, or that their lives are so unacceptable that books reflecting them should be banned as obscene. And that’s a lot of kids being targeted by privileged white people whose voices are heard and taken as legitimate in school board meetings and in the media and when they complain to the authorities. Brownstein offers a lineup of statistics underlying the full-scale freakout:
Children of color have constituted a majority of the public school K-12 student body since 2014, according to federal statistics, and now make up nearly 55% of the total. Gallup recently reported that 1 in 5 members of Generation Z, as well as 1 in 10 millennials, identify as LGBTQ, far more than in older generations. And the Public Religion Research Institute has found that more than a third of young adults identify as secular, without affiliation with any organized religion.
In the short term, Republicans are trying to get their base angry and scared enough to turn out in droves in November. In the long term, they’re engaged in a pitched battle to claim themselves as the only legitimate judgment about education or parenting or who matters in this country. And they don’t care how many kids or librarians or teachers they have to trample on to do it.
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Another Republican caught voting twice in the same election. The latest is Trump aide Matt Mower
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If Republicans are truly interested in finding all those election irregularities they’re obsessed with, they’d better start looking at themselves.
The latest member of the GOP mired in voter fraud accusations is former President Trump’s aide Matt Mowers, who held a senior role in the State Department and is now running for Congress in New Hampshire. Mowers took it upon himself to vote in two states during the 2016 presidential primaries.
RELATED STORY: Either Mark Meadows is living in a mobile home in North Carolina or he’s committed voter fraud
According to the Associated Press, during the time Mowers worked as director of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s presidential campaign, he voted via absentee ballot in New Hampshire. But just a few months later, after Christie’s run began to stall, Mowers re-registered in New Jersey using his parents’ East Brunswick home address.
The New Hampshire Department of Justice indicates that it is “reviewing the matter” regarding Matt Mowers voting in two states during the 2016 presidential primaries.
On June 7, nearly two weeks after candidate Trump received the Republican Party nomination and weeks after casting that New Hampshire absentee ballot, Mowers voted in New Jersey, AP reports.
The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) defines “double voting” as “voting more than once “in the same election” and says that states prohibit it. But that’s not really as clear as you’d assume.
“Double voting is often listed as a felony in states, and can come with hefty fines or jail time. Although statistics show it to be rare, it is also difficult to identify and difficult to prosecute when it does occur,” the NCSL writes about whether or not double voting is a crime.
In New Hampshire, it is illegal to vote in two states, but according to AP, an exemption can be used if a voter “legitimately moved his or her domicile.”
That said, in Mowers’ case, it’s the irony and hypocrisy that really stand out.
Gail Huff Brown, spouse of Republican Sen. Scott Brown and former television host, is running in New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District against Mowers. Brown told the New Jersey Globe that “The Republican Party is the party of election integrity, and we cannot nominate someone who has engaged in voter fraud and expect to be taken seriously on the topic. … We can do better.”
That we can all agree on. We should do better. So, why do Republicans continue to play hard and fast with the voting rules?
On Sep. 19, 2020, about three weeks before North Carolina’s voter registration deadline for the general election, Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, claimed to be living in a 14-foot by 62-foot mobile home in Scaly Mountain, North Carolina. The trouble is, it doesn’t appear to be true. Now Meadows is being investigated by authorities in North Carolina for possible fraud.
“The allegations, in this case, involve potential crimes committed by a government official,” Macon County District Attorney Ashley Hornsby Welch wrote in a letter to the attorney general’s office.
According to the North Carolina Board of Elections, on Oct. 26, Debbie Meadows, Mark Meadows’ wife, showed up at the Macon County community building in Franklin, North Carolina, and filled out a one-stop voter application for early voting in the 2020 presidential election, claiming to live in the Scaly Mountain mobile home. The problem was … she didn’t.
North Carolina state law outlines that in order to vote in that state you must reside in the claimed address for at least 30 days prior to the election. Debbie must not have read the top of the voter form, which clearly states that “fraudulently or falsely completing this form is a Class I felony under Chapter 163 of the NC general statutes.”
But the outrageous part is that not only are GOP candidates continuing the falsehood of the Big Lie, but they’re using it to undermine Democrats’ legitimate wins.
Michigan Democratic Sen. Gary Peters is battling former opponent John James after James refused to concede his loss to Peters, The Detroit News reports. James’ camp is claiming voting integrity issues in the election.
“It’s sad and it’s pathetic. They lost,” Peters told the press. “It’s very clear. Just count the votes. I understand Mr. James has been running for four years, he’s lost twice now. I understand that doesn’t sit well with him.”
James told The Detroit News he is launching an investigation into the election so voters can believe it was “fair and honest,” and only after the investigation has been completed will he “accept the results and the will of the people.”
One has to wonder if the Meadows or Mower will get the same treatment as so many others do—especially if they happen to be Black.
As I reported in February, Pamela Moses, 44, was sentenced to six years in prison for trying to register to vote. Moses, a longtime Black Lives Matter activist in Memphis, Tennessee, told The Guardian that what happened to her was a straight-up “scare tactic” designed to keep her—and people who look like her—from voting.
In 2019, Lanisha Diresha Bratcher Jones was charged with felony voter fraud.
After serving time for a felony offense, she was out on probation when she tried to vote in 2016. She learned then that under North Carolina regulations, as a convicted felon, she wasn’t allowed to vote. However, she hadn’t been informed of that when she registered.
“I had no intention to trick anybody or be malicious or any kind of way,” she told The Guardian. “If you expect us to know that we should know we should not do something, then we should not be on the list or even allowed to do it.”
Mowers is hoping to unseat Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas in the 2022 GOP primaries.
Florida's 'Don't Say Gay' law draws copycat bills in Ohio and Louisiana
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Republicans never let a terrible idea go to waste. If one Republican-controlled state passes a harmful law that will do violence to vulnerable people, it’s a virtual certainty that several other Republican-controlled states will follow suit. That’s how it’s been with the Texas abortion bounty hunter law, and it’s how it’s shaping up with Florida’s notorious “Don’t Say Gay” law.
Ohio and Louisiana Republicans are already considering their own versions of the Florida legislation, which prohibits teachers from talking about gender identity or sexual orientation to students in kindergarten through third grade, and limits how those subjects can be discussed with older students. In Texas, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says he’ll make a similar bill a priority when the state legislature starts its next session in January. If he’s going to jump on board with every oppressive bill introduced in any state between now and January, the Texas legislature is going to have a lot to get done.
RELATED STORY: Republican governor signs cruel ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill into law and sets a dangerous precedent
The thinking behind such bills “is that parents will be allowed to decide when they want their children to learn about LGBTQ+ issues instead of having the school talk about them at an age that may be too early or confusing,” Marissa Higgins explained about the Florida bill. “Mind you, there are undoubtedly LGBTQ+ children (and teachers, custodians, principals, parents, and so on) in every school in Florida right now. They might not be ‘out,’ they might not have the language yet, but they’re there. The only thing that comes from not talking about LGBTQ+ identity is that people lack knowledge, and down the road, may live with internalized queerphobia and feelings of confusion and self-hate. It doesn’t stop anyone from being queer to simply be silent about it.”
But silence—and the knowledge that you are seen as unacceptable or dirty that comes with enforced silence—is enough for Republicans.
A viral social media post exposed some gaps in the logic of the Florida law, enraging right-wing groups in the process:
Dear Florida parent/caretaker:
The Florida house of Representatives has recently ruled that “Classroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3 or in a manner that is not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students.”
To be in accordance with this policy, I will no longer be referring to your student with gendered pronouns. All students will be referred to as “The” or “them.” I will no longer use a gendered title such as “Mr.” or “Mrs.” or make any references to my husband/wife in the classroom. From now on I will be using the non-gendered title “Mx.”
Furthermore, I will be removing all books or instruction which refer to a person being a “mother,” “Father,” “husband” or “wife” as these are gender identities that also may allude to sexual orientation. Needless to say, all books which refer to a character as “he” or “She” will also be removed from the classroom. If you have any concerns about this policy, please feel free to contact your local congressperson.
Thank you, Mx. XXXXXXXXXX
“Man” and “woman” are gender identities, guys. Heterosexuality is a sexual orientation. Florida Republicans—perhaps soon to be followed by Ohio and Louisiana ones—technically did ban those identifications as well. Because it wouldn’t occur to Republicans that what they think of as normal and right could fall under the category of “gender identity” or “sexual orientation.” They expect that everyone will know what they mean and fall in line, because the very vagueness and broadness of the law is itself a threat.
Relatedly, the Ohio bill also contains familiar bans on teaching about race and racism, or, as it calls them, “divisive or inherently racist concepts.” Again, by being extremely vague and broad, it may limit speech even more than carefully written, highly specific language would do.
”I think it’s probably by design, that they just want to instill fear, that if you wonder if something may or may not be considered controversial or considered divisive or considered illegal under this legislation, the safest bet is to just not talk about it at all. And that’s the real harm that’s caused because that deprives our students from a complete and honest education,” Ohio Education Association President Scott DiMauro told CNN.
That harm comes whether the concepts being banned are “trans people exist” or “racism exists.” And Republicans are dedicated to harming as many kids as possible.
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Colorado governor signs bill guaranteeing the right to an abortion regardless of SCOTUS decision
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As GOP states across the country make moves to ban abortion and restrict residents from obtaining essential health care services, some Democratic states are making moves of their own. Colorado’s governor signed HB 22-1279 on Monday to ensure that Coloradans who want reproductive care, including abortions, will be able to get it in the state. The bill will guarantee abortion access—regardless of whether the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade.
“In the State of Colorado, the serious decision to start or end a pregnancy with medical assistance will remain between a person, their doctor, and their faith,” Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement after signing the bill into law on Monday.
“This bill simply maintains the status quo regardless of what happens at the federal level and preserves all existing constitutional rights and obligations,” he added.
It took about 24 hours to pass the bill when it was proposed, according to House Majority Leader Daneya Esgar.
“It’s more important now than ever to protect women and people who choose to be pregnant or choose not to be pregnant across the state,” Esgar said.
Blue states are racing to pass legislation guaranteeing abortion protections, and GOP-majority states are passing their own bans as the Mississippi law makes its way to the Supreme Court. The Mississippi law has the ability to limit abortion rights across the country by overturning Roe v. Wade.
Similar to those of at least 15 other states that have codified the right to access abortion services, Colorado’s “Reproductive Health Equity Act” bans both local and state governments from interfering in reproductive health care.
Because of bans in other states, officials in Colorado are also planning for the possibility that neighboring state residents will travel across borders to seek care.
Across the country, GOP majority states have taken to targeting reproductive rights, with many passing their own versions of the Heartbeat Bill or similar abortion bans that severely limit when abortions are possible but disregard unusual circumstances, including rape.
The latest state to join this horrific trend is Oklahoma, whose lawmakers passed a bill to ban all abortions unless necessary to save a pregnant person’s life, beginning 30 days after conception. In addition to banning doctors from performing abortion procedures, the legislation passed Tuesday allows citizens to sue abortion providers for up to $10,000 if they help end a pregnancy, The Washington Post reported.
Ukraine update: 'The Russians have turned our whole city into a death camp'
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The atrocities in Bucha were only uncovered after Russian forces withdrew rapidly under fire from advancing Ukrainian troops. Now, as Ukrainian forces go town to town across northern Ukraine, more horrors are being discovered. Survivors are telling stories of civilians gunned down without warning, of homes set on fire for no reason, and of people being taken from their homes and executed, apparently for the amusement of the occupiers.
In Borodyanka an apartment building above a shelter holding hundreds of people was blasted into ruins, and despite being told of the situation, it appears Russian forces made no effort to remove the rubble that they had generated. Ukrainian workers are clearing the wreckage now, all too aware of what they are likely to find. The destruction in the town, 20 miles northwest of Kyiv, is considered the worst seen anywhere so far.
Of course, the world hasn’t seen everything. In Mariupol—where Russian forces deliberately bombed an opera house labeled with the word “children” and where thousands have been taken away to unknown locations inside Russia—weeks of shelling are now being followed with weeks of fighting street by street, while over 100,000 people remain trapped inside the tightening circle. With limited communications, Mariupol isn’t producing the steady stream of images seen early in the invasion. What’s happening in the city, especially in the sections now occupied by Russia, is impossible to say.
But there are horrible clues …
Even before the tanks rolled across the Ukraine border, there were reports of these crematory units being seen on the ground with Russian forces. The assumption was that they were to be used to incinerate the bodies of Russian soldiers lost in battle, disguising the extent of their own losses. Similar units were reportedly seen following fighting in the Donbas region in 2014 and 2015. At the time, Ukrainian officials reported that multiple such mobile crematoria were being used to incinerate dozens of bodies per day.
Based on what’s been seen of the cruelty of forces involved in this invasion, it’s very easy to believe the claims coming from Mariupol. However, it is not possible at this point to know if there is any truth behind these reports. But the mayor of the besieged city put it in the starkest terms imaginable.
“The scale of the tragedy in Mariupol is something the world has not seen since the time of Nazi concentration camps,” said the mayor. “The Russians have turned our whole city into a death camp.”
From the first day of the war, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy made it clear that Ukraine was ready to surrender the idea of joining NATO as part of a peace agreement with Russia. Instead, Zelenskyy proposed that Ukraine make a separate agreement with several other countries that would promise to offer assistance in case Ukraine was attacked. That would allow Ukraine to meet Russian demands that it not join NATO, but wouldn’t leave the nation standing on its own in case Russia decided to come back for another bite.
At the first two meetings between Russian negotiators and Ukrainian representatives in Belarus, Russia seemed to be accepting of this idea. But at the talks in Istanbul, Russian demands appeared to be that Ukraine strip itself of weapons, not join NATO, and not be allowed to be a part of any security pact. Essentially, that Ukraine stand helpless against any future attack. Which was not exactly the right demand to make when Russian forces in Ukraine were losing.
Since that point, Zelenskyy has seems to have put the idea of Ukraine joining NATO squarely back onto the table. However, it seems he’s still negotiating an alternative.
In light of the discoveries in Bucha and elsewhere, it’s become clear that even if civilians are not killed outright by a Russian military that has deliberately targeted hospitals, homes, schools, and shelters, what happens to civilians when a village or town is occupied by Russian forces can be even worse. So it’s understandable that Ukrainian officials are working desperately in an effort to evacuate civilians who remain in Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Luhansk oblasts. These are the areas where the most intense fighting is expected to occur in the near future, and where Russian forces are advancing to occupy new locations.
Both special trains and busses are now engaged in a full time effort to shuffle people from these oblasts to Kyiv and points west.
We can only hope that those Russian soldiers who were involved in Bucha were also the ones given this assignment.
Wednesday, Apr 6, 2022 · 1:44:07 PM +00:00
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Mark Sumner
I hate to keep hammering this particular horror. But there are reports that when Russians occupied the town, there were noises coming from the basement where residents of the apartment block had sheltered. But Russian troops threatened to shoot anyone who tried to dig them out.
Leaving this alone until there is more actual news from the site. Miracles remain possible.
Senate Republican death cult kicks back in gear, aligning with Putin and COVID-19
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With Congress set to leave Washington, D.C., for two weeks at the end of this week, Senate Republicans continue to drag their feet on two critical pieces of legislation: rescinding permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) with Russia, along with codifying President Joe Biden’s energy imports ban; and passing desperately needed COVID-19 funding to allow the administration to continue to fight the global pandemic. The House has already done both of these things, but both will have to go from the Senate back to the House to be passed again there, since the Senate will have made changes. Which means both are very likely to be delayed until Congress reconvenes during the last week of April, if not May.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer attempted to file cloture Tuesday on the $10 billion COVID-19 relief bill to which Republicans have already agreed. That vote failed 47-52, with Schumer voting no so that he can retain the ability bring the bill back up. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) also voted no.
“The need to continue funding the fight against COVID is clear, but I cannot support siphoning off essential resources for rural communities, tribes and small businesses in Oregon and nationwide just to pad drug companies’ profits,” Wyden said. He continued, “It’s pure politics that Republicans insisted vital COVID assistance be drained to pay for this bill. I remain committed to finding solutions […] needed to battle this public health crisis without making rural America, tribes and small businesses foot the bill.”
The funding has already been chopped by more than half from the administration’s initial ask. At $10 billion, it would allow for the purchase of more vaccines and therapies, and would allow testing and research to continue. It contains no funding at all for USAID to help developing nations stave off the disease. It also includes no funding for the administration to continue to pay for testing, vaccinations, and treatments for the uninsured.
Those critical elements were cut because Republicans refuse to pass a bill with them. They are also refusing to allow a vote unless they get an amendment to the bill to force the Biden administration to reinstate the Title 42 restrictions imposed during the Trump administration and authored by white supremacist Stephen Miller. The administration announced the end of the policy last week. Republican governors immediately sued and now Republican senators are tying up COVID-19 vaccine, testing, and treatment funding in protest.
The administration has been urging the funding for weeks, warning that money are running out—and fast. “We have enough tests on hand to weather the surge,” Biden said last week. “But without funding, we’re not going to be able to sustain the testing capacity beyond the month of June. And if we fail to invest, we leave ourselves vulnerable if another wave of the virus hits.”
That’s one global emergency. On the other big one, Ukraine, the U.S. Congress is lagging behind the rest of the world, thanks to the Republicans in the Senate who can stop anything from happening even though they do not have a majority. The European Union (EU) is proposing further sanctions; its fifth package banning Russian coal; banning all transactions by four Russian banks; banning all Russian and Russian-operated vessels from using any EU ports, as well as a ban on Russian and Belarusian commercial transport in the EU; and another €10 billion worth of bans on Russian advanced semiconductors, machinery, and transport equipment.
In addition to that, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced Tuesday that the EU is “working on additional sanctions, including on oil imports, and we are reflecting on some of the ideas presented by the member states, such as taxes or specific payment channels such as an escrow account.”
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are still balking at revoking Russia’s PNTR status with the U.S. The sanctions language Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) demanded be included hasn’t been settled, and other unnamed but most likely Republican senators are demanding other changes. It’s looking more and more unlikely that this agreement will be reached before the Senate’s recess. As Sen. Wyden told reporters, “every day of delay” puts “more money into Putin’s hands.”
Republicans are so intent on preventing President Biden from having any kind of win at all, they are presenting a divided government face to the rest of the world—and to Vladimir Putin. That’s terrible for the U.S., but indescribably bad for Ukraine, giving Putin more license to indiscriminately slaughter Ukrainian citizens.
It doesn’t help that on Tuesday 63 House Republicans voted against a resolution “Calling on the United States Government to uphold the founding democratic principles of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and establish a Center for Democratic Resilience within the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.” Yes, they voted against upholding the democratic principles of NATO.
The Republican Party is posing a clear danger to the actual republic.
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