WARS ABROAD, WARS AT HOME
A TALE OF TWO AMERICAS: Where the Rich Get Richer and the Poor Go to Jail
Ask yourself this: at a time when crime rates across the country remain at historic lows (despite Sessions’ inaccurate claims to the contrary), why does the prison population continue to grow? The prison population continues to grow because of a glut of laws that criminalize activities that should certainly not be outlawed, let alone result in jail time. Overcriminalization continues to plague the country because of legislators who work hand-in-hand with corporations to adopt laws that favor the corporate balance sheet. And when it comes to incarceration, the corporate balance sheet weighs heavily in favor of locking up more individuals in government-run and private prisons. As Time reports, “The companies that build and run private prisons have a financial interest in the continued growth of mass incarceration. That is why the two major players in this game—the Corrections Corporation of America and the GEO Group—invest heavily in lobbying for punitive criminal justice policies and make hefty contributions to political campaigns that will increase reliance on prisons.” More
Social media fury follows video of dazed woman put out in cold by Baltimore hospital
“So wait, y’all just going to leave this lady out here with no clothes on?” said Imamu Baraka, referring to a dazed woman wearing only a thin hospital gown whom they had left alone at a bus stop Tuesday night in mid-30s temperatures. Her face appeared bloody, her eyes empty. It was the latest incident of “patient dumping,” which has sparked outrage around the country — and one that, according to an expert, probably violated a 1986 federal law that mandates hospitals release those in their care into a safe environment. “This kind of behavior is, I think, both illegal and I’m sure immoral,” said Arthur L. Caplan, founding head of the division of medical ethics at the New York University School of Medicine. “You don’t just throw someone out into the street who is impaired and may have injuries. You try to get them to the best place possible, and that’s not the bench in front of the hospital.”
The phenomenon was pervasive two decades ago, when the law was largely unenforced, Caplan said, but it remains a problem from California to Virginia. More
Will America ever have a #MeToo-style reckoning for racism?
We’re in the middle of a reckoning on the subject of sexual assault and sexual misconduct — especially in the workplace. Abuses long swept under the rug or covered up are being exposed, the perpetrators punished. But just as women have long endured inappropriate conduct, with no sense that they’d get any justice if they spoke up, so have many people of color. Which led us to wonder: What would a racial “reckoning” in the style of #MeToo look like in our country? #MeToo is a tough social movement to define, but several overarching themes emerge: Perpetrators of sexual harassment are being called out for specific bad behavior, ranging from very explicit to more subtle forms. People are losing their jobs because of it. There is a cultural conversation happening that involves identifying this behavior, once acceptable (or ignored), as unacceptable. And there is a broader conversation happening about the underlying systems that enable this kind of behavior. What would a similar movement centered on race look like? More
Up to 250,000 Salvadorans Face Deportation After Trump TPS Decision
“We have been in the US for more than 20 years, and they didn't give us any permanent status. I think we are honorable people. We do the work other people don't want to do. We earn very little money. We pay for housing and taxes and school for the children -- for my three children -- and they go to the school. And today I feel very sad, because they want to take the TPS from us. The people who brought our children here with us and who brought them here when they were young, it's not their fault. It's our fault. We were looking for an improvement after our country was destroyed by war. And after that, in 2001, it was destroyed by the earthquake, on January 13th, 2001. I hope they give us legal status. That's what we are asking. We are honorable people, worthy of this country. And this country is our country, because we spend our lives here.” More
Gentrification Kills: Race, Inequality and the Death of American Cities
Peter Moskowitz in his book How to Kill a City criticizes the narrative that gentrification is “good development for the city.” …Moskowitz’s is brilliant in showing the why of gentrification: the federal government under President Reagan cut the budget of the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s by 40% and cut the Department of Transportation by 17.5%. Many cities had to turn to bonds to pay for services, but some like Detroit learned that credit ranking companies had downgraded their credit rating until the city couldn’t get a loan. Detroit, New Orleans, and many other cities then devised policies based on producing economic growth by wooing rich people to the cities and moving out poor people. The author produces much evidence to show how gentrification worsens class and racial segregation as well as ends community by analyzing New Orleans, Detroit, San Francisco, and New York. More
When Will Democrats Start #Resisting GOP Voter Suppression?
Democrats have not always been angels when it comes to gerrymandering and related tactics. Far from it. But far more often than not, especially in recent years, they’ve been the victims of a range of voter suppression tactics that includes gerrymandering, caging, and understaffing minority-neighborhood polling places. So why aren’t they making an issue of it? … So why are Democrats talking about this issue every day? Somebody should. If party leaders won’t campaign on this issue, insurgent candidates will have to do it for them. If party leaders won’t organize voter registration efforts to counteract Republican suppression, movement activists will have to do it for them. And if party leaders don’t understand what they need to do to win elections, maybe it’s time to choose some new party leaders. More
Five Spills, Six Months in Operation: Dakota Access Track Record
Representatives from Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the controversial Dakota Access pipeline, traveled to Cambridge, Iowa, in October to present a series of $20,000 checks to emergency management departments in six counties. The money was, in part, an acknowledgement of the months of anti-pipeline protests that had taxed local agencies during construction, but it was also a nod to the possibility of environmental contamination. One of the counties had pledged to use its check to purchase “HazMat operations and decontamination training/supplies.” Less than a month later, in Cambridge, the Iowa section of the Dakota Access pipeline would experience its first spill. More
A New Poll Shows the Public Is Opposed to Endless US Military Interventions
Last week, the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Foreign Policy—a bipartisan advocacy group calling for congressional oversight of America’s lengthy list of military interventions abroad—released the results of a survey that show broad public support for Congress to reclaim its constitutional prerogatives in the exercise of foreign policy (see Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution) and for fewer US military interventions generally. Undertaken last November by J. Wallin Opinion Research, the new survey revealed “a national voter population that is largely skeptical of the practicality or benefits of military intervention overseas, including both the physical involvement of the US military and also extending to military aid in the form of funds or equipment as well.” … The poll shows strong, indeed overwhelming, support, for Congress to reassert itself in the oversight of US military interventions, with 70.8 percent of those polled saying Congress should pass legislation that would restrain military action overseas. More
WALKING BACK WAR IN KOREA
In talks this week at the DMZ, South Korea welcomed the participation of North Korea in the upcoming Winter Olympics. The two countries also discussed restarting reunions of divided families and reducing tensions on the Korean peninsula. Earlier, both sides reestablished their hotline. All of this adult conversation is a welcome change from the war of epithets between the “dotard” president of the United States and the “little rocket man” in Pyongyang. Strange, then, that a politically diverse set of pundits in the United States has been worried only about how North Korea could use these talks to drive a wedge between South Korea and the United States. More
US to loosen nuclear weapons constraints and develop more 'usable' warheads
The Trump administration plans to loosen constraints on the use of nuclear weapons and develop a new low-yield nuclear warhead for US Trident missiles, according to a former official who has seen the most recent draft of a policy review. Jon Wolfsthal, who was special assistant to Barack Obama on arms control and nonproliferation, said the new nuclear posture review prepared by the Pentagon, envisages a modified version of the Trident D5 submarine-launched missiles with only part of its normal warhead, with the intention of deterring Russia from using tactical warheads in a conflict in Eastern Europe… Arms control advocates havevoiced alarm at the new proposal to make smaller, more “usable” nuclear weapons, arguing it makes a nuclear war more likely, especially in view of what they see as Donald Trump’s volatility and readiness to brandish the US arsenal in showdowns with the nation’s adversaries. More
Trump to call on Pentagon, diplomats to play bigger arms sales role
The Trump administration is nearing completion of a new “Buy American” plan that calls for U.S. military attaches and diplomats to help drum up billions of dollars more in business overseas for the U.S. weapons industry, going beyond the limited assistance they currently provide, officials said. President Donald Trump is expected to announce a “whole of government” approach that will also ease export rules on U.S. military exports and give greater weight to the economic benefits for American manufacturers in a decision-making process that has long focused heavily on human rights considerations, according to people familiar with the plan. vThe initiative, which will encompass everything from fighter jets and drones to warships and artillery, is expected to be launched as early as February, senior officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. More
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