15 July 21
Urgent and Immediate Appeal for Donations
Donations are at a dead stop. Funding is seriously lacking. Most people who come to RSN are apparently totally indifferent. Even as readership is on the rise?
That is unjust.
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15 July 21
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SERIOUS FUND-RAISING, HERE AND NOW. Reader Supported News is surviving and maintaining services in the most challenging fundraising environment our organization has ever seen. But just barely. Today we ask for the support of all RSN readers who can afford to give. This will be a good fundraiser. Thanks to all in advance.
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Charles Pierce | Joe Biden Gave a Great Speech on Voting Rights. I Just Wish It Mattered.
Charles Pierce, Esquire
Pierce writes: "I wish I could see it changing minds, if only the minds of Senators Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema and their stubborn devotion to the filibuster - a word, I should note, that did not pass the president's lips on Tuesday."
The word "filibuster" did not pass the president's lips on Tuesday.
t was an excellent speech that the president gave Tuesday in Philadelphia. It hit almost all the right notes and it hit them hard. There was a sense of crisis to his delivery, and more than a little indication that he understands how perilous this moment is for the experiment that began not far from the spot where he was talking. It had the tone of a speech you give after the country has been attacked, which it has been. He even broke out a new line, talking not only about “voter suppression,” but about “voter subversion,” which is certainly equally dangerous to the franchise. (For example, in Texas, the provision that cuts down on drive-through voting is “voter suppression.” In Georgia, the provision that allows the state election commission to overrule local election officials is “voter subversion.”) And his closing was a rouser.
We the people here will never give up. We will not give in. We will overcome. We will do it together. In guaranteeing the right to vote, ensuring that every vote is counted, has always been the most patriotic thing we can do. Remember, our late friend John Lewis said, “Freedom is not a state. It’s an act.”… And we must act and we will act for our cause is just. Our vision is clear. Our hearts are full. For we, the people, for America itself, we must act.
I just wish it mattered. I wish I could see it changing minds, if only the minds of Senators Joe Manchin and Kirsten Sinema and their stubborn devotion to the filibuster—a word, I should note, that did not pass the president’s lips on Tuesday. The Democrats from the Texas legislature are in Washington right now, awaiting an imminent encounter with the Texas Rangers, because they’re out there on a creaking limb trying to defend the franchise in their state, and using the only weapon they have left. From NBC News:
The lawmakers have promised to use their time in the nation’s Capitol lobbying for federal voting rights legislation. "We also know that we are living right now on borrowed time in Texas, and we can't stay here indefinitely," said state Rep. Rhetta Bowers, a Democrat from the Dallas area. "Texas Democrats will use everything in our power to fight back but we need Congress to act now.”
But, fundamentally, the whole business comes down to the answer to a question that the president thundered at the crowd in the middle of his address on Tuesday.
Have they no shame?
No, in fact, they don’t. And he knows it. We all know it. Hell, they’ve moved on to denying that the events of January 6 were what we all saw them to be on television. If you’re willing to do that, full in the knowledge that your constituency will not exact a price from you, and indeed may cheer you on, you’re willing to do almost anything. In fact, Manchin and Sinema—and the several other Democratic senators whom I believe are standing in the shadows behind them—have no shame, either. They’re not blind or stupid. They are making their choices and they are standing by them. The bully pulpit, after all, is just a piece of furniture.
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Sharon Rivera adjusts flowers at daughter Victoria's grave at Calvary Cemetery in New York City in 2020. Her daughter, 21, died of a drug overdose in 2019. According to new CDC data, drug overdose deaths soared to more than 93,000 last year. (photo: Kathy Wilens/AP)
Drug Overdoses Killed a Record Number of Americans in 2020, Jumping by Nearly 30%
Bill Chappell, NPR
Chappell writes: "More than 93,000 people died of a drug overdose in the U.S. last year - a record number that reflects a rise of nearly 30% from 2019, according to new data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Officials said the increase was driven by the lethal prevalence of fentanyl as well as pandemic-related stressors and problems in accessing care."
ore than 93,000 people died of a drug overdose in the U.S. last year — a record number that reflects a rise of nearly 30% from 2019, according to new data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Officials said the increase was driven by the lethal prevalence of fentanyl as well as pandemic-related stressors and problems in accessing care.
"This is the highest number of overdose deaths ever recorded in a 12-month period, and the largest increase since at least 1999," Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, told NPR.
The data is provisional as states are still reporting their tallies to the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics. But even with some data not yet complete, the numbers tell a dire story.
Ten states are predicted to have at least a 40% rise in drug overdose deaths from the previous 12-month span, according to the CDC: Vermont, Kentucky, South Carolina, West Virginia, Louisiana, California, Tennessee, Nebraska, Arkansas and Virginia.
Volkow, whose agency is part of the National Institutes of Health, calls the data "chilling." It's another sign, she said, that both the COVID-19 pandemic and the opioid crisis are whipsawing the country with deadly effects.
"This has been an incredibly uncertain and stressful time for many people, and we are seeing an increase in drug consumption, difficulty in accessing lifesaving treatments for substance use disorders and a tragic rise in overdose deaths," Volkow said.
She added that people between the ages of 35 and 44 accounted for the highest number of deaths.
While the provisional data doesn't provide a breakdown by race and ethnicity, other recent studies suggest that at least in Philadelphia and California, the sharpest rise in overdose fatalities last year was among Black residents. And other studies have shown that even before the pandemic, overdose rates in Black communities were rising much faster than among white Americans.
Drug overdoses accounted for roughly one-quarter as many deaths as COVID-19 did in 2020, using the CDC's number of 375,000 pandemic deaths last year.
The provisional 93,331 U.S. drug overdose deaths are a sharp increase from the 72,151 deaths estimated in 2019. Deaths in 2020 from opioids alone — 69,710 — nearly eclipsed the total number of fatal overdoses in the previous year, although deaths involving other drugs such as methamphetamine and cocaine also contributed to the increase.
It's urgent, Volkow said, for governments and agencies to widen access to treatment for people who are suffering from substance use disorders.
As NPR's Brian Mann reported last month, "If current trends continue, illicit drugs will soon kill more Americans every day than COVID-19."
Before 2016, more Americans died from heroin overdoses annually than from powerful synthetic opioids such as fentanyl, according to the CDC. But the number of lives lost to overdoses from synthetic opioids has soared since then.
Roughly 57,000 people died from synthetic opioids (predominantly fentanyl) last year, compared with around 13,000 people who died from heroin overdoses.
Fentanyl's properties are similar to morphine — but it's "50 to 100 times more potent," according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. It is also frequently cut into other illegal drugs, including cocaine. That dangerous trend has triggered outreach efforts to train people in using naloxone, which can reverse an opioid overdose.
The federal government has been taking steps to address drug addiction and overdoses, said Chuck Ingoglia, CEO of the National Council for Mental Wellbeing.
"Congress recently has appropriated lots of new dollars to try to address this," he said. "And it's been interesting to see that the Biden-Harris administration is really prioritizing the full continuum of interventions, everything from harm reduction to increased treatment capacity."
He said the House appropriations bill also includes funding for syringe exchange programs, which he said is the first time the federal government has explicitly called for this "vital component of harm reduction interventions." But unless there is long-term funding to create a system to address drug addiction, Ingoglia said, it may be hard to prevent overdoses in the long run.
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Sen. Bernie Sanders, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, faces reporters after a lunch Wednesday with President Biden and Senate Democrats at the U.S. Capitol. (photo: Drew Angerer/Getty)
ALSO SEE: Manchin 'Open' to $3.5 Trillion Democratic Budget Deal
Democrats' Budget Deal Would Invest In the Child Tax Credit, Health Care and Climate
Dana Farrington, NPR
Farrington writes: "A budget deal announced by the Senate Budget Committee on Tuesday includes major investments in climate initiatives and would extend the child tax credit expansion and fund universal Pre-K."
budget deal announced by the Senate Budget Committee on Tuesday includes major investments in climate initiatives and would extend the child tax credit expansion and fund universal pre-K.
The sweeping $3.5 trillion resolution has a long way to go before passage, but the White House lauded it as a "breakthrough" on one of President Biden's major legislative priorities. Biden was on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to rally support for it.
Lawmakers have offered only an outline of the plan so far — and few details on how to pay for it. Specifics will need to be worked out in the weeks ahead, but the question of how to pay for it is crucial. Senate Democrats need every member of their caucus — even the most moderate — to pass the budget narrowly. The price tag is big and a potential hurdle in the Senate, while in the House, the most progressive members may argue it doesn't go far enough.
Here are the highlights of what we know so far about the resolution, from a senior Democratic aide:
Total cost: $3.5 trillion
How it will be paid for: A senior Democratic aide says the plan is to tap three major areas to offset the costs: health care savings, including on prescription drugs; tax code changes for high-income individuals and corporations; and long-term economic growth. The plan says it prohibits tax increases on families making under $400,000 a year, small businesses and family farms.
Child tax credit expansion: The resolution would extend the child tax credit expansion that passed as part of coronavirus relief. Starting Thursday, qualifying families will start getting money each month through the end of the year. The budget proposal would extend that temporary program. Many Democrats want to make this credit permanent, but the length of the extension will depend on final details decided by the committee drafting the bill.
Climate initiatives: The budget outline aims to meet Biden's goal of 80% clean electricity and 50% carbon emissions by 2030 through clean energy and vehicle tax incentives, a clean energy standard and other initiatives. It would also establish a Civilian Climate Corps.
American Families Plan programs: The resolution takes on major programs proposed by the president, including universal pre-K; investment in high quality and affordable child care; and funding for community colleges, historically Black colleges and universities, and minority-serving institutions. It would also put more money into paid family and medical leave, nutrition assistance and affordable housing.
Health and home care programs: The resolution would add new dental, vision and hearing benefits to Medicare; extend the Affordable Care Act expansion put in place by the American Rescue Plan; expand home and community-based services; and reduce patient spending on prescription drugs.
Support for workers and businesses: The plan would make investments in housing and small businesses and give "pro-worker incentives and penalties."
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A firefighter works through the remains of a burned-out house on September 14, 2020 in Estacada, Oregon. (photo: Nathan Howard/Getty)
Emails Reveal Cops Fanned Flames as FBI Debunked Antifa Hoax
Kelly Weill, The Daily Beast
Weill writes: "On Sept. 11, 2020, the same day the Federal Bureau of Investigation released a statement dismissing rumors that leftist activists were starting wildfires in Oregon, a sheriff in Washington state sent a very different message to other members of law enforcement."
Wildfires are back and could be worse than ever. Just don’t tell the cops manufacturing wild rumors about how they start.
n Sept. 11, 2020, the same day the Federal Bureau of Investigation released a statement dismissing rumors that leftist activists were starting wildfires in Oregon, a sheriff in Washington state sent a very different message to other members of law enforcement.
“One of the methods Antifa is using to start fire’s,is to take a mason jar with tinder placed inside the jar, put it in brush with the lid open, so the hot sun light will create a slow start which allows them to be out of the area before the smoke appears [sic],” Klickitat County Sheriff Bob Songer wrote in an email to officials throughout the state.
The email, obtained by the government transparency group Property Of The People and reviewed by The Daily Beast, came as wildfires and misinformation swept the Pacific Northwest. Rumors like these, which falsely accused anti-fascists or Black Lives Matter activists of starting the wildfires after a summer of rage over racist police violence, were not without consequence. On at least one occasion, a family was attacked during a camping trip by Washingtonians who wrongly believed their converted camper-bus to be an “antifa” transport vehicle. Songer’s email blasted the bus-owner as “antifa/BLM,” months after their harrowing story made national news.
To his knowledge, he told The Daily Beast in an interview, his department has done nothing to correct the record.
Baseless rumors about leftists starting wildfires were predictable, especially as fire seasons worsen with climate change, experts say. But those hoaxes take on a new power when embraced by law enforcement.
Mike Caulfield, a researcher at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, said the narrative first gained momentum in Australia in January 2020, when conservatives wrongly accused environmentalists of starting a series of devastating blazes.
American conservatives watched closely.
“A lot of people on the political right here were retweeting and supporting the theory that the Australian fires were created by arsonists, and in some cases going as far as to blame climate activists,” Caulfield told The Daily Beast.
Those hoaxes were shared by figures on the political right in the U.S. who, after the George Floyd protest wave took off, repurposed the rumors, swapping Australian environmentalists for American leftists.
"We saw this narrative coming in January. We knew it was coming, in some form, in the fall,” during the U.S. wildfire season, Caulfield said.
The rumors went well beyond mere chatter. While photographing the flames in Estacada, Oregon, last September, a photojournalist was held up at gunpoint by vigilantes who accused him of being a “looter,” as the Guardian reported. A Black evacuee of a burning Oregon neighborhood was stopped at an unsanctioned roadblock by a group of armed men who accused her of being “not from around here.” Three men were later arrested for allegedly blocking roads and demanding identification from drivers near fires.
Ryan Shapiro, executive director of Property Of The People, said the rumors could put people at risk.
"Especially when so much of the far right is on high alert for supposed subversives, sheriffs spreading baseless rumors about antifa puts progressive activists and the general public in the crosshairs,” Shapiro told The Daily Beast.
The most heated rumors were a continuation of hoaxes from earlier in the year, which falsely claimed anti-fascists and Black Lives Matter activists were bussing into targeted residential neighborhoods to commit murder and arson.
Sometimes, police were publicly implicated in the spread of those rumors. On Sept. 11, the day of Songer’s email, a video showed a sheriff’s deputy in nearby Clackamas County, Oregon, blaming the fires on anti-fascists.
“Antifa motherfuckers are out causing hell, and there’s a lot of lives at stake. And there’s a lot of people’s property at stake because these guys got some vendetta,” the Clackamas deputy told a civilian. The civilian had previously shown him a picture of gas cans in a bush, which he said was evidence of anti-fascists starting fires in Oregon. (The man said he did not know in which state the pictures of gas cans had been taken.)
At a high level, law enforcement has attempted to combat the hoaxes.
“FBI Portland and local law enforcement agencies have been receiving reports that extremists are responsible for setting wildfires in Oregon,” read the FBI’s bulletin sent on the same day as Sheriff Songer’s email. “With our state and local partners, the FBI has investigated several such reports and found them to be untrue. Conspiracy theories and misinformation take valuable resources away [from] local fire and police agencies working around the clock to bring these fires under control. Please help our entire community by only sharing validated information from official sources.”
The Clackamas County deputy was suspended over the video. But Songer, whose county borders on Oregon, made more incendiary comments about the fires in an email with the subject line “Black Life's Matter / Antifa information.” His claims about “Antifa” using “mason jars” for arson was sent to members of his department, the Washington State Patrol, the Skamania County Sheriff, the Bingen-White Salmon Police Department, and the Goldendale Police Department.
The Goldendale and Skamania departments did not return requests for comment.
Bingen-White Salmon Police Department Chief Mike Hepner told The Daily Beast that, while he did not recall the email, his department had never seen any evidence to support its claims.
Sergeant Darren Wright, a public information officer for the Washington State Patrol, told The Daily Beast that the WSP does not typically investigate fires, but that he’d reached out to a statewide fire investigator who was skeptical of Songer’s claims. The fire investigator “said [mason jars] would be an unlikely way of starting a fire and he doesn’t know of any incidents where that occurred,” Wright said.
The email also reached the Yakima County, Washington, sheriff, who forwarded it to two officers with the message “FYI” on Sept. 14. A different member of the Yakima County office had previously displayed hostility toward perceived “antifa,” according to emails obtained by Property of the People. In June 2020, Edward Rivenbark, a Yakima County Sheriff reserve deputy, emailed a video to a former reserve deputy.
“This is funny, you must check it out! :D,” Rivenbark wrote. “Patriots kicking the shit out of Antifa, enjoy!”
The video contained footage of uniformed members of the Proud Boys brawling with leftists during a notorious June 30, 2018, rally in Portland, Oregon. The video, set to P.O.D.’s “Here Comes The Boom,” included slowed-down footage of Proud Boy leader Ethan Nordean punching someone. Nordean is currently facing multiple charges for his alleged role in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, where he allegedly served as the Proud Boys’ leader on the ground.
Yakima County Sheriff Bob Udell told The Daily Beast that he had forwarded Songer’s email for informational purposes, and only to two officers. “It was not followed up and no research done into the veracity of the email’s information,” Udell said. “It had been filed away into the dustbins of history not likely to be seen again” if not for a records request.
Udell said his department had been unaware of Rivenbark’s email, but upon learning of it, found it to have violated department standards. “As you likely suspected, such an email does not even get close to professional standards. We shall deal with the issue,” Udell said.
Rivenbark did not respond to a request for comment.
When reached for comment about his own email, Sheriff Songer asked whether this reporter was “antifa” and declined to speak at length, suggesting that this article would likely be “to the left, and if that’s the case, we probably don’t have a lot to talk about.”
“It is my job to enquire your position on this stuff,” Songer told The Daily Beast.
He said the email’s contents were “information that I had received at the time. I’m not going to give out the source, but they were concerned about that.” He said he never received actual evidence that anti-fascists or Black Lives Matter activists had started any fires.
Last year’s ruinous fire season is already at risk of being outdone in 2021. A climate change-fueled cocktail of extreme heat and drought have left much of the western U.S. in tinderbox conditions this summer, with a new rash of fires already threatening Oregon and Washington. In Klickitat County, alone, a new fire grew to 30 acres on Monday, prompting “get ready” evacuation warnings. As of Monday, a water shortage forced local firefighters to make a 24-mile round trip to resupply, KOIN reported.
Songer’s email also accused a woman of being an “Antifa/BLM” agitator, months after those same false claims had led to her family being attacked on a camping trip.
“The white bus being driven by suspected Antifa/BLM has been spotted at events in Sequim, Seattle, Coeur d’Alene, Spokane and now Moses Lake,” Songer wrote, alongside the bus’s license plate number. “The bus appears to be an older model timber crew bus. The registered owner of the bus is Shannon Lee Lowe with an address of [Lowe’s address].”
Had Songer even googled Lowe’s name, he would have discovered that she and her family were surrounded by vigilantes during a camping trip in June, in what Lowe described to the Peninsula Daily News as something like “a hostage situation.”
As a crowd formed and took their pictures, one man jumped inside their bus.
“He said he thought we were a part of this terrorist group and we had come to town and were going to burn and destroy it, and he had come to protect it,” Lowe told the outlet.
She could not be reached for comment on this story. The Bingen-White Salmon Police Department and the Washington State Patrol, which received Songer’s email, told The Daily Beast they had no evidence supporting Songer’s claims about Lowe.
Asked about the email, Songer said he hadn’t known Lowe’s family was harassed, and asked for the contents of his own email to be read over the phone. Upon hearing it, Songer noted that his message could not have motivated the attack, because he sent it months afterward.
“What information we give out—after this lady and her family was attacked—we give out possible information to prevent crime from being [sic] occurred, occurring, so I’m not sure what you’re going from. I’m sure it’s going to be leaning to the left,” he said.
Songer said that, to his knowledge, his department had neither taken action against Lowe based on the email, nor made any subsequent efforts to correct his characterization of her.
Songer describes himself as a “constitutional” sheriff, part of a right-wing movement that incorrectly claims sheriffs are the highest form of law enforcement in their counties, overriding local police, state police, and even federal authorities. The movement appears to have gained momentum in the COVID era, with at least two Nevada counties spending thousands of public dollars to join “constitutional” sheriffs organization, and two Texas counties hosting events for that organization. (The events featured a former leader of a white nationalist group.)
Songer made his own headlines last month when he announced his intent to “arrest, detain and recommend prosecution [of]” any elected officials or government workers who attempt to enforce future COVID-19 restrictions. Claiming that the United States and Washington constitutions are founded on Christianity, Songer claimed to have sworn an oath as the “Supreme Judge of the Universe” as sheriff.
Local health officials pushed back on his plans to arrest people for enforcing safety measures during an ongoing pandemic.
“While I feel my staff have been admirable in their ability to brush off these threats, threats of this nature coming from the sheriff himself are creating an environment where staff fear for their livelihood as public health employees,” the county’s public health director wrote Klickitat County commissioners in an email.
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Supporters of law enforcement gathered at City Hall in Salt Lake City for a rally in support of police hosted by the Utah Business Revival on Saturday, June 20, 2020. A woman was recently charged in Utah with an anti-police hate crime. (photo: Francisco Kjolseth/The Salt Lake Tribune)
ACLU Denounces Hate Crime Charge Over Woman Who Stepped on 'Back the Blue' Sign
Paighten Harkins, The Salt Lake Tribune
Harkins writes: "The American Civil Liberties Union of Utah said Monday that a southern Utah prosecutor's decision to charge a 19-year-old with a hate crime for allegedly damaging a "Back the Blue" sign sends a message that the government will more harshly punish people who disagree with law enforcement."
Garfield County prosecutors accused a 19-year-old of stomping on and crumpling a pro-police sign to intimidate an officer.
he American Civil Liberties Union of Utah said Monday that a southern Utah prosecutor’s decision to charge a 19-year-old with a hate crime for allegedly damaging a “Back the Blue” sign sends a message that the government will more harshly punish people who disagree with law enforcement.
The misdemeanor charge stems from a July 7 traffic stop in Panguitch, when Deputy Cree Carter pulled over a car that was suspected of speeding, according to a probable cause statement.
After the stop, Carter said a 19-year-old woman, who was traveling with the group, allegedly stomped on a “Back the Blue” sign, crumpled it “in a destructive manner” and threw it away, “all the while smirking in an intimidating manner towards [the officer].”
Carter didn’t believe the woman’s story about how she got the sign, and thought she had taken it from someone in the county.
The woman was booked into jail on allegations of criminal mischief and disorderly conduct. The criminal mischief charge was enhanced to a class A misdemeanor because Garfield County prosecutors filed it as a hate crime. She has since been bailed out of jail.
The Garfield County Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment Monday evening.
Utah law defines a hate crime as when a person commits an offense and intends to “intimidate or terrorize” or reasonably believes their action would intimidate or terrorize someone. It further defines “intimidate and terrorize” as something that makes a person “fear for his physical safety or damages the property of that person or another.”
The 19-year-old woman was charged under this statute.
Another state law specifically mentions “status as a law enforcement officer” as a protected class.
While many in Utah fought for decades for the 2019 hate crimes statute that brings additional penalties for people who target victims based on personal attributes — like ancestry, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity and more — the ACLU opposed the bill and others that enhance penalties for people accused of hate crimes.
In the Monday statement, the ACLU said that these enhancements “are oftentimes used to single out unpopular groups or messages rather than provide protections for marginalized communities.”
“This case has confirmed those warnings,” the statement said.
Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill, who was a proponent of the 2019 hate crimes bill, said Monday night that he couldn’t comment on this specific case in Garfield County, but he said that in general, the statute was and remains an important victory for people from communities that have been historically targeted by discrimination.
He said in using the statute, prosecutors must look at cases individually to make charging decisions.
“It is a case-specific analysis that has to be balanced between protected speech and freedom of speech that is constitutionally protected and conduct that is selectively targeting of victims based upon their status,” Gill said.
The ACLU of Utah also questioned in their statement if the charge was a good use of government resources.
“Bringing a charge against this person that could result in her spending a year in jail makes no sense both in terms of simple fairness and expending the county’s time and money,” the ACLU said.
The Utah Department of Public Safety tracks self-reported crime stats from law enforcement agencies across the state, including hate crimes. The majority of hate crimes reported were offenses that targeted someone’s race or ethnicity, followed by religion and then sexual orientation and gender identity.
Garfield County didn’t send data for the most recent 2019 report.
However, it appears prosecutors are charging people with hate crimes there. They charged a now 32-year-old man in August 2020 with another anti-police hate crime after he allegedly spray-painted the word “bisexual” over the word “blue” on a “Back the Blue” sign.
The man faced multiple misdemeanors and was convicted in January of a class A misdemeanor for criminal mischief. He was sentenced to one year in jail, but that sentence was suspended and cut down to two days. He also was ordered to pay fines and write an apology letter.
He wrote, “While I cannot change the fact that in a bigoted and un-American act, I disregarded your First Amendment rights in exchange for mine, I am deeply sorry for my actions and wish to do anything possible to help restore the damage that was done.”
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Razor wire and a guard tower stands at a closed section of the US prison at Guantánamo Bay on Oct. 22, 2016. (photo: John Moore/Getty)
What Might Happen to Guantánamo Now That US Troops Are Leaving Afghanistan
Sacha Pfeiffer, NPR
Pfeiffer writes: "So what does that mean for Gitmo? After all, the U.S. military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was created to hold enemy fighters captured in Afghanistan and the so-called War on Terror. If the Afghanistan conflict ends, what happens to its prisoners of war?"
he war in Afghanistan has lasted nearly 20 years. One of its key architects, former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, died last month. And this week, President Biden said the U.S. military operation there will end on Aug. 31, just shy of the twentieth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
So what does that mean for Gitmo? After all, the U.S. military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was created to hold enemy fighters captured in Afghanistan and the so-called War on Terror. If the Afghanistan conflict ends, what happens to its prisoners of war?
Here are five questions — and answers — for what might happen to the prison at Guantánamo as the conflict in Afghanistan ends.
First, remind me: How many prisoners are left at Gitmo?
Over the years, Guantánamo has held nearly 800 people, but now just 40 men are imprisoned there, and almost three-quarters of them have never been criminally charged. They're known as "forever prisoners" and they're being detained indefinitely. Some have been there for almost two decades.
How has the U.S. government justified holding them without charging them with any crimes?
The legal foundation of Guantánamo is that after 9/11, Congress passed an "authorization for use of military force" in 2001 to go after whomever was responsible for those attacks, like al-Qaida and the Taliban. That law gives the president sweeping powers during wartime, and the government claims that includes the ability to detain prisoners without charge or trial.
But it's unclear when those powers expire and what the parameters of war are. It's also not clear whether the U.S. can justify holding prisoners forever due to a larger, amorphous global war on terror. As a result, the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan raises complicated legal questions, such as whether a war can still be considered ongoing once fighters leave the main battlefield, and whether prisoners must be freed following a troop withdrawal.
"Without having troops in Afghanistan, it's going to be harder for the government or deferential courts to say, 'Well, yeah, you said the war was over, and also there are no troops in the field, and also nobody's shooting, but the war remains ongoing,'" said Guantánamo defense attorney Ben Farley. "It's just going to be harder to say that with a plain face."
Have any courts weighed in on this?
Yes, lawsuits have been filed over these issues, and courts have generally avoided specifically addressing whether these vast presidential war powers are specific to a certain geography. Instead, courts have been able to point to the war in Afghanistan as justification for holding detainees. But human rights activists and detainees' lawyers say a war must have defined boundaries so we know when it's over and time to release prisoners.
"One of the fraught questions for the past 20 years has been whether or not the war on terrorism extends beyond the borders of Afghanistan and nearby Pakistan," said Guantánamo defense attorney Michel Paradis. "Is the war a war against al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan? Or is it a war against terrorism broadly? Is it a war against al-Qaida and anything that shares al-Qaida's ideology, any organization that splits off from al-Qaida?"
Or has the war on terror become a "rhetorical war," he added, one similar to the war on drugs, war on poverty and war on cancer, which do not convey prosecutorial powers such as jailing people indefinitely?
"There are these pretty major questions," said Paradis, who also teaches at Columbia Law School, "but those debates have largely been able to be sidestepped, if only because the war in Afghanistan has been ongoing."
Guantánamo's critics say it's nonsensical to argue that the war is over for purposes of bringing troops home, but the war continues for purposes of detaining people captured by those troops.
Yet several Senate Republicans say releasing these prisoners would endanger the country, and the Justice Department continues to argue that the U.S. has authority to indefinitely detain accused terrorists.
"We have been and remain at war with al-Qaida," said DOJ attorney Stephen M. Elliott at a May hearing in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., in a case involving a former Afghan militia member who has been held at Guantánamo since 2007.
Al-Qaida is "morphing and evolving," Elliott said, and the U.S. "war on terrorism" continues.
Now that the U.S. is leaving Afghanistan, Paradis said, he assumes Guantánamo prisoners are preparing new legal motions that will eventually land before the Supreme Court.
"I can imagine there'll be at least a few detainees saying that you can no longer hold me because the whole reason you've been holding me all this time, all these decades now, has been the claim that if I'm released, I will be a danger in the war in Afghanistan," he said. "And without that, why are you still holding me?"
What happens if the prisoners win that argument?
That's tricky because the U.S. has to find countries to take them, and some of the prisoners are from collapsed countries like Yemen. But since President Biden entered office, at least six Guantánamo detainees have been cleared for transfer to other countries.
Still, Guantánamo defense attorney Wells Dixon points out that just because transfers have been approved does not mean they're imminent: "There are detainees in Guantánamo today who've been approved for transfer for more than a decade and they're still in Guantánamo," he said.
Still, does clearing prisoners for release lay the groundwork for emptying Gitmo's prison and shutting it down?
Yes. As Paradis notes: "The more individuals who are cleared to be released, the easier it is to close Guantánamo, because the detainee population gets smaller and smaller every day."
Yet the Justice Department is at cross purposes with the Biden administration by opposing legal motions filed by Gitmo prisoners, said Dixon, who is also a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights.
"Why does the United States government continue to reflexively fight detainee cases, given the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and the declarations from the president that the conflict is ending?" Dixon asked. "If you consider the president's mandate to close the prison and you look at what the Department of Justice and other agencies are doing, they're squarely at odds with each other."
But with the legal argument for indefinitely detaining Gitmo prisoners on shakier ground as U.S. troops leave Afghanistan, Biden and the Justice Department could finally get on the same page, possibly leading to the eventual closure of Guantánamo's military prison.
With the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, "I think what you'll see is a lot of pressure put on the administration, and on the government more generally in litigation, arguing that the armed conflict has ended," said Farley, the Guantánamo defense attorney, "and detention authority has evaporated."
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Part of the Amazon rainforest south of Novo Progresso burning in August 2020. (photo: Carl De Souza/Getty)
Amazon Rainforest Now Emitting More CO2 Than It Absorbs
Damian Carrington, Guardian UK
Carrington writes: "The Amazon rainforest is now emitting more carbon dioxide than it is able to absorb, scientists have confirmed for the first time."
Cutting emissions more urgent than ever, say scientists, with forest producing more than a billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a year
he Amazon rainforest is now emitting more carbon dioxide than it is able to absorb, scientists have confirmed for the first time.
The emissions amount to a billion tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, according to a study. The giant forest had previously been a carbon sink, absorbing the emissions driving the climate crisis, but is now causing its acceleration, researchers said.
Most of the emissions are caused by fires, many deliberately set to clear land for beef and soy production. But even without fires, hotter temperatures and droughts mean the south-eastern Amazon has become a source of CO2, rather than a sink.
Growing trees and plants have taken up about a quarter of all fossil fuel emissions since 1960, with the Amazon playing a major role as the largest tropical forest. Losing the Amazon’s power to capture CO2 is a stark warning that slashing emissions from fossil fuels is more urgent than ever, scientists said.
The research used small planes to measure CO2 levels up to 4,500m above the forest over the last decade, showing how the whole Amazon is changing. Previous studies indicating the Amazon was becoming a source of CO2 were based on satellite data, which can be hampered by cloud cover, or ground measurements of trees, which can cover only a tiny part of the vast region.
The scientists said the discovery that part of the Amazon was emitting carbon even without fires was particularly worrying. They said it was most likely the result of each year’s deforestation and fires making adjacent forests more susceptible the next year. The trees produce much of the region’s rain, so fewer trees means more severe droughts and heatwaves and more tree deaths and fires.
The government of Brazil’s president, Jair Bolsonaro, has been harshly criticised for encouraging more deforestation, which has surged to a 12-year high, while fires hit their highest level in June since 2007.
Luciana Gatti, at the National Institute for Space Research in Brazil and who led the research, said: “The first very bad news is that forest burning produces around three times more CO2 than the forest absorbs. The second bad news is that the places where deforestation is 30% or more show carbon emissions 10 times higher than where deforestation is lower than 20%.”
Fewer trees meant less rain and higher temperatures, making the dry season even worse for the remaining forest, she said: “We have a very negative loop that makes the forest more susceptible to uncontrolled fires.”
Much of the timber, beef and soy from the Amazon is exported from Brazil. “We need a global agreement to save the Amazon,” Gatti said. Some European nations have said they will block an EU trade deal with Brazil and other countries unless Bolsonaro agrees to do more to tackle Amazonian destruction.
The research, published in the journal Nature, involved taking 600 vertical profiles of CO2 and carbon monoxide, which is produced by the fires, at four sites in the Brazilian Amazon from 2010 to 2018. It found fires produced about 1.5bn tonnes of CO2 a year, with forest growth removing 0.5bn tonnes. The 1bn tonnes left in the atmosphere is equivalent to the annual emissions of Japan, the world’s fifth-biggest polluter.
“This is a truly impressive study,” said Prof Simon Lewis, from University College London. “Flying every two weeks and keeping consistent laboratory measurements for nine years is an amazing feat.”
“The positive feedback, where deforestation and climate change drive a release of carbon from the remaining forest that reinforces additional warming and more carbon loss is what scientists have feared would happen,” he said. “Now we have good evidence this is happening. The south-east Amazon sink-to-source story is yet another stark warning that climate impacts are accelerating.”
Prof Scott Denning, at Colorado State University, said the aerial research campaign was heroic. “In the south-east, the forest is no longer growing faster than it’s dying. This is bad – having the most productive carbon absorber on the planet switch from a sink to a source means we have to eliminate fossil fuels faster than we thought.”
A satellite study published in April found the Brazilian Amazon released nearly 20% more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over the past decade than it absorbed. Research that tracked 300,000 trees over 30 years, published in 2020, showed tropical forests were taking up less CO2 than before. Denning said: “They’re complementary studies with radically different methods that come to very similar conclusions.”
“Imagine if we could prohibit fires in the Amazon – it could be a carbon sink,” said Gatti. “But we are doing the opposite – we are accelerating climate change.”
“The worst part is we don’t use science to make decisions,” she said. “People think that converting more land to agriculture will mean more productivity, but in fact we lose productivity because of the negative impact on rain.”
Research published on Friday estimated that Brazil’s soy industry loses $3.5bn a year due to the immediate spike in extreme heat that follows forest destruction.
This article was amended on 14 July 2021. The reference to forests switching “from a sink to a source” of carbon had been expressed the other way around in an early version.
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