18 January 20
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18 January 20
Patrick Leahy | Trump Broke the Law. Congress Must Now Defend the Separation of Powers.
Patrick Leahy, The Washington Post
Leahy writes: "On Thursday morning, hours before senators were sworn in to serve on President Trump's impeachment trial, an independent, nonpartisan government watchdog confirmed what I have long suspected: When Trump froze congressionally appropriated military aid to Ukraine as part of an effort to compel Ukraine to investigate his political rival, he broke the law."
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The price tag for the president's border wall, now projected to be 576 miles long, has pushed past $11 billion. (photo: STAR FM)
Patrick Leahy, The Washington Post
Leahy writes: "On Thursday morning, hours before senators were sworn in to serve on President Trump's impeachment trial, an independent, nonpartisan government watchdog confirmed what I have long suspected: When Trump froze congressionally appropriated military aid to Ukraine as part of an effort to compel Ukraine to investigate his political rival, he broke the law."
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The price tag for the president's border wall, now projected to be 576 miles long, has pushed past $11 billion. (photo: STAR FM)
At $11 Billion and Counting, Trump's Border Wall Would Be the World's Most Expensive
John Burnett, NPR
Burnett writes: "President Trump's border wall comes at a staggering cost: $11 billion, or nearly $20 million per mile. It's already the most expensive border wall in the world, and the costs keep piling up."
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Lee Carter, Virginia's only socialist state legislator. (photo: Bill O'Leary/WP/Getty Images)
ALSO SEE: Death Threats Will Force Virginia Lawmaker to a Safe House During Pro-Gun Rally
John Burnett, NPR
Burnett writes: "President Trump's border wall comes at a staggering cost: $11 billion, or nearly $20 million per mile. It's already the most expensive border wall in the world, and the costs keep piling up."
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Lee Carter, Virginia's only socialist state legislator. (photo: Bill O'Leary/WP/Getty Images)
ALSO SEE: Death Threats Will Force Virginia Lawmaker to a Safe House During Pro-Gun Rally
Lois Beckett, Guardian UK
Beckett writes: "Virginia's only socialist state legislator said he has been the target of multiple death threats over a bill that pro-gun activists misinterpreted as a potential threat to their rights."
The legislation introduced by Lee Carter, a 32-year-old Bernie Sanders-endorsed socialist, would allow public school teachers to strike without being fired, and has in fact nothing to do with guns. But some gun rights activists wrongly interpreted it as an attempt to fire law enforcement officials who might refuse to comply with gun control laws introduced by Virginia’s new Democratic legislative majority.
The result, Carter said, has been a torrent of threats and abuse on social media, from promises to vote him out of office, to claims that “this is tyranny and you know what we do to tyrants,” to explicit threats of murder, like, “I’m going to make sure you don’t live through this legislative session” or “I’m going to kill this guy, y’all make sure you don’t forget my name.”
Carter, says he has been so concerned about the death threats that he has started openly carrying a handgun to protect himself.
On Monday, when tens of thousands of gun rights activists will converge on the state capitol in Richmond for what is expected to be a volatile demonstration against the new gun control bills introduced by Virginia Democrats, Carter said that he plans to be in hiding, at an undisclosed location, concerned that he might be a target of violence even in his own home.
Among the threats against him, Carter said, there had been frequent mentions of Monday’s pro-gun protest, “and a lot of people saying, ‘We’re going to kick off the second American civil war. This guy is going to be the first one to die. Make sure you show up armed.”
Carter said he had reported a handful of what seemed to be the most serious social media threats to Virginia’s capitol police.
The Virginia governor, Ralph Northam, declared a state of emergency on Wednesday in advance of Monday’s pro-gun rally, citing law enforcement intelligence that armed anti-government activists were traveling from other states to join the rally, some of them with the goal of “violence, rioting and insurrection”.
Carter, who was re-elected to Virginia’s general assembly this November, said that the legislation that had led to death threats against him had originally been introduced last year. It was designed to repeal current Virginia law, which bars all public employees from striking, a policy that has been on the books since at least the 1950s, he said.
Public school teachers in other states have used strikes “to successfully raise the alarm about the conditions that they are teaching kids in”, Carter said. As a supporter of workers’ rights, he said, he wanted to make it possible for Virginia’s teachers to strike without being fired.
His original bill did not even get a hearing last year, he said, in part because his fellow lawmakers were concerned about the possibility of strikes by police officers undermining public safety. So he re-wrote the bill language, allowing all public employees except law enforcement officials to strike without penalty, and re-introduced it for the 2020 legislative session.
But when some gun rights activists read the bill, they claimed it meant something entirely different. Carter’s bill to allow teacher strikes was written into a broader narrative “that spread like wildfire within the conspiracy-minded parts of the rightwing internet”, he said, claiming that the state’s Democratic governor was working to confiscate Virginians’ guns, and that his new legislation was designed “to fire cops who don’t confiscate guns”.
That conspiracy theory relied upon a basic misreading of the bill text, which in fact kept longtime Virginia law intact for law enforcement officers, and created a new exemption for other public employees.
While a gun rights YouTube channel had appeared to be central to spreading the misreading of his bill to a wide audience, Carter said that some of the misinformation about his bill appeared to be fueled by police unions, and even by a fellow Republican state lawmaker – all people, he said, who should be able to accurately read legislation.
A longtime gun owner and marine veteran himself, Carter said he has never introduced any legislation related to guns, and that he considers himself a moderate when it comes to gun laws – supportive of universal background checks, for instance, but skeptical of an assault weapons ban.
“I got re-elected without saying the word gun once,” Carter said.
That was not the case for some of Virginia’s Democratic politicians, who had campaigned on gun violence prevention as a central issue in November’s elections. After Democrats won full control of the state government for the first time in 26 years, Virginia’s Democratic governor announced that passing gun control laws, including an assault weapons ban, would be a top priority.
Carter said he saw this choice as a “terrible idea”, one that played directly into conspiracy theories that have circulated in rightwing groups for decades. The draft legislation for a Virginia assault weapons ban, which was originally written to include a ban on the possession of military-style weapons, sparked fears of confiscation among Virginia’s gun owners, and helped fuel a passionate grassroots movement against gun control across the state.
“[The extreme right] has been saying for years that an assault weapon ban is going to be their excuse to start killing people,” Carter said. “I tried to have this conversation with my colleagues, but, frankly, a lot of my colleagues don’t want to believe that that’s out there.”
“I won’t even say it’s like a landmine, because a landmine you can’t see. There’s a big button on the ground that says, ‘If you step here, it will explode’ and Democrats just stomped on it, because they didn’t want to believe that it exists.”
Instead, he said, he believed Democrats had an “head in the sand” mentality, he said, “that we can enact this policy, and that it will be fine”.
“Their faith in institutions is so strong that they refuse to believe it’s not shared by everyone.”
While Carter has previously kept guns for self-defense in his home, he said he has never before regularly carried a gun in public. Now, he said, he will be continuing to monitor internet chatter, and showing up armed to public events when he believes there might be heightened risk of an attack.
“I am having to take steps to protect myself and protect my family,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that we’ve gotten to this point.”
The lawsuit argues that the new food-stamp rule 'turns a blind eye' to local labor market conditions, which aren't always as rosy as the U.S. or even statewide unemployment numbers might suggest. (photo: Shutterstock)
Aimee Picchi, CBS News
Picchi writes: "14 states, New York City and Washington, DC are suing to block a recent Trump administration rule that will deny food stamps to about 700,000 poor adults."
The rule will also lead to higher state costs due to hunger and higher health care expenditures, as well as from increased administrative burdens to handle the new regulation, the lawsuit alleges. The states and cities allege that the new rule forces them to rely on overly broad jobless data that ignores the realities of regions around the country where good-paying jobs can still be hard to come by.
The new rule was announced in December as part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's push to reform food stamps, formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Increasing work requirements for adults between the ages of 18 to 49 who don't have children and who are "able bodied" will encourage them to return to work, Department of Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said at the time. The food stamp program was meant to provide "assistance through difficult times, not a way of life," he said.
But narrowing eligibility for SNAP aid will have the opposite effect, according to critics.
"Implementation of this rule will not increase the employment rate among SNAP beneficiaries. But it will most definitely increase hunger," Eric Angel, executive director of the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia, said in a statement.
The new rule doesn't apply to children or their parents, disabled Americans, or those over age 50. The food stamp program limits Americans to three months of benefits, unless they're either working or in training for 20 hours a week. Under the old regulations, states could waive those limits if a region's unemployment rate is 20% above the national rate, which stood at 3.5% in December.
That currently places the waiver threshold at an unemployment rate of about 4.2%; the new rule will increase it to 6%, making it harder for some states to qualify for the waiver and expand food aid. As of November, only one state — Alaska — had a jobless rate above 6%.
The states that are suing are: California, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia.
Activists in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. (photo: Getty Images)
US Supreme Court Takes Up Presidential Electoral College Dispute
Al Jazeera
Excerpt: "As the 2020 race heats up, the Supreme Court agreed on Friday to hear a dispute involving the complex United States presidential election system focusing on whether Electoral College electors are free to break their pledges to back the candidate who wins their state's popular vote, an act that could upend an election."
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A Mexican National Guard looks at local residents crossing the Suchiate River, near Ciudad Hidalgo, on the Mexican border with Guatemala. (photo: Maria Verza/AP)
Al Jazeera
Excerpt: "As the 2020 race heats up, the Supreme Court agreed on Friday to hear a dispute involving the complex United States presidential election system focusing on whether Electoral College electors are free to break their pledges to back the candidate who wins their state's popular vote, an act that could upend an election."
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A Mexican National Guard looks at local residents crossing the Suchiate River, near Ciudad Hidalgo, on the Mexican border with Guatemala. (photo: Maria Verza/AP)
Migrants, Troops Slowly Build Up on Guatemala-Mexico Border
Maria Verza, Associated Press
Verza writes: "More than 200 mostly Honduran migrants rested on a bridge at the Guatemala-Mexico border waiting for the arrival of others and hoping sheer numbers will improve their chances of entering Mexico and continuing their journey north."
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Maria Verza, Associated Press
Verza writes: "More than 200 mostly Honduran migrants rested on a bridge at the Guatemala-Mexico border waiting for the arrival of others and hoping sheer numbers will improve their chances of entering Mexico and continuing their journey north."
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A satellite image of a towering smoke plume in New South Wales, Australia on Dec. 31, 2019. (photo: Pierre Markuse/Copernicus Sentinel)
Scientists Find Australian Wildfire Smoke Has Circled the Globe
Natasha Roy, NBC News
Roy writes: "Smoke from the wildfires that are raging across Australia has circumnavigated the globe, NASA announced Tuesday."
Natasha Roy, NBC News
Roy writes: "Smoke from the wildfires that are raging across Australia has circumnavigated the globe, NASA announced Tuesday."
A satellite traced the movement of the smoke and produced an image Monday showing areas in Australia where the smoke had reached its place of origin.
Scientists first observed the smoke from Australia making its way across the Pacific Ocean in December, and now say that they have tracked it back to the country's eastern region.
A satellite traced the movement of the smoke and produced an image Monday showing areas in Australia where the smoke had reached its place of origin.
The smoke from Australia has already had a “dramatic impact” on New Zealand, where it is “turning the skies hazy and causing colorful sunrises and sunsets,” NASA said in a statement.
NASA has emphasized that the fires in Australia can cause global damage, saying that “unprecedented conditions that include searing heat combined with historic dryness” have led to an erratic weather phenomenon called “fire clouds.” These clouds allow smoke to travel 10 miles high, and from there, it can disperse thousands of miles away from its origin.
This isn’t the first time smoke from a major fire has traveled across the planet. Mike Flannigan, director of the Canadian Partnership for Wildland Fire Science at the University of Alberta in Canada, said it has happened in fires in the United States and Canada in the past.
"One fire in Alberta caused smoke to travel to the eastern seaboard, and it was so thick, that the street lights came on during the day," Flannigan said. "It went to Europe and caused all sorts of problems in Europe."
The reach of wildfire smoke depends on wind patterns and the intensity of the fires. When smoke is ejected high into the atmosphere, it can be transported by winds all the way around the globe.
“Most of our weather occurs in what we call the troposphere, and that's about 10 kilometers (6 miles), give or take, and closest to the Earth,” Flannigan said. “Once you get into the stratosphere, it's a much more stable environment. So the smoke, ash can get trapped in there for weeks and months and be caught up in these wind patterns and transported around the Earth, going around the Earth again, because they do last weeks to months.”
Flannigan said that this can block some sunlight, which could cause a regional cooling effect. Eventually, gravity will likely cause the smoke and ash to settle lower in the atmosphere, closer to the Earth's surface, but he added that this could cause air quality problems and pose health risks.
Wildfire smoke causes hundreds of thousands of premature deaths on average every year, according to Flannigan. Most of these are in Southeast Asia, due to prolonged exposure. But he warns that episodic exposure is also risky.
“If it becomes constant ... then we do have really significant problems," Flannigan said. "But that's unlikely.”
While NASA states that this phenomenon can affect global atmospheric conditions, the overall impact of Australia’s smoke is still being studied.
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