Justice

Millions of people fear they are likely to be evicted from their homes within the next two months as a growing housing crisis threatens to explode during the fourth wave of the COVID pandemic. Only a fraction of the emergency rental relief approved by Congress has been distributed. Advocates say relief programs are marred by red tape and bureaucratic delays, raising fears that the aid will not reach struggling renters before an already flimsy federal eviction moratorium expires in October.

Economy & Labor Pelosi Is Wrong – Biden Has the Power to Cancel Student Debt, and He Should Culture & Media Glen Ford’s Journalism Fought for Black Liberation and Against Imperialism Environment & Health EPA Approval of PFAS for Fracking May Spell a New Health Crisis for Communities Politics & Elections Both the Delta Variant and Thin-Willed Democrats Are Lethal to Our Society Environment & Health Biden Promotes $100 Incentives to Encourage Unvaccinated to Get Their Shots Environment & Health Exxon-Influenced Senators Carved Climate Out of Infrastructure Almost Entirely Spanline Dixon, a retired teacher’s aide, is used to unpleasant smells. Her home in Brunswick, Georgia, is near a waste and recycling facility, a water pollution control plant, and two facilities that emit toxic chemicals into the air: a pulp mill, Georgia Pacific (GP) Cellulose, and Pinova, a resin manufacturer. But on the evening of January 17, Dixon could literally feel a strong chemical odor, she said. She was disoriented. “I turned the air conditioner off, and it just attacked my respiratory system. I was coughing, and I didn’t know what was going on. I felt sick, nauseated… and it was in the back of my throat,” Dixon said. She called 911. “My pulse and my heart rate were pounding,” she said. She tried to escape the smell by going outside, but she found it there, too. The EMTs who arrived on the scene said they could smell the chemical odor down the street from her home. They administered oxygen to Dixon and ventilated her house. Dixon started feeling better that night. But she soon filed an official air quality complaint with the Environmental Protection Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, or EPD, following the advice of Brunswick-based environmental nonprofit Glynn Environmental Coalition, where she serves as a board member. Around the same time, several members of a Brunswick-area Facebook group, “SMELL SOMETHING, TELL SOMETHING!”, posted about a chemical odor similar to what Dixon experienced. A January 20 post in the group reads: “Toxic putrid smell. How many people have to get sick before something is done??? Is it time to hire a [sic] attorney?” In response to many posts like these, Glynn Environmental Coalition executive director Rachael Thompson suggested filing an official complaint with the state. Dixon’s is one of 170 air quality complaints about a noxious chemical odor in Brunswick and surrounding areas that were submitted to the EPD via phone and online between December 2020 and May 2021. People reported symptoms such as nonstop coughing, irritation of the throat and nose, rashes, and difficulty breathing. The complaints triggered an EPD investigation, as well as an independent one by the environmental coalition. Brunswick is a coastal city in Glynn County with a population of about 16,000, 55% of whom are Black. Industrial pollution has long plagued Brunswick, home to four Superfund sites, some of the most hazardous waste sites in the nation, and 14 sites on Georgia’s hazardous site inventory. All but one of these sites lie within a one-mile radius of a “majority-minority” population. To investigate the chemical odor, Glynn Environmental Coalition partnered with researchers from the University of Georgia to analyze 26 separate complaints filed by eight individuals in the Brunswick area between December 2, 2020 and May 8, 2021. Their analyses examined the location, date, time, weather, wind speed, and wind direction of each complaint to determine the source of the chemical odor. Their research pointed them to the GP Cellulose facility. GP Cellulose senior manager of public affairs, Randal Morris, said in an email that the company highly values their relationship with the Brunswick community and is working cooperatively with the EPD to help determine if their operation is a contributing source to the chemical odor complaints. He also said that GP Cellulose has been monitoring for hydrogen sulfide, a colorless gas that smells like rotten eggs, at locations on and around its Brunswick pulp mill since April, and will continue monitoring it for several months. “Given the proximity of our Brunswick operation to the location of some of the complaints along with a review of available meteorological data, we cannot rule out our operation as a potential contributing source of odor in the area,” Morris said. “Based upon the complaint information shared with us, our daily operations data does not indicate irregularity with our emissions that would correlate with the nature, timing and pattern of the citizen complaints.” The EPD identified a Clean Air Act violation at GP Cellulose last April involving nitrogen dioxide, one of several incurred by the corporation over the years. Nitrogen dioxide and hydrogen sulfide are two toxic chemicals emitted by GP Cellulose; others include ammonia, nitrous oxide, and sulfur dioxide. Over time, emitting these chemicals into the air can cause major health consequences to humans, including a higher risk of heart disease, respiratory disease, certain types of cancer, and birth outcomes. The university and Glynn Environmental Coalition plan to release their findings in a report later this month. Thompson said her group will use it to continue organizing city officials and local polluting industries to help resolve community concerns about air quality. They’re advocating for the EPD to monitor Brunswick’s air for sulfur dioxide, nitric oxide, and nitrogen dioxide. The agency currently only monitors the city’s air for particulate matter—PM 2.5 — and ozone. Additionally, the coalition is building an “air quality toolbox” that will include an online complaint portal and an anonymous tip hotline to make it easier for community members to submit air quality complaints to the EPD and the EPA and to track information the EPD withholds from the public. EPD director of communications Kevin Chambers said in an email that, agencies are able to withhold information related to a pending investigation of unlawful activity until the investigation is closed. Since the EPD is nearing the end of its air quality investigation in Glynn, they’ve released details of closed complaints “to assist the community in their understanding of the issue.” The agency used meteorological data, modeling, odor complaint information, and onsite inspections, yet did not make a definitive determination of the source of the chemical odor. “Odor investigations are difficult in nature due to a multitude of factors,” Chambers said. The unusually harsh chemical odor that invaded Brunswick and Dixon’s home has mostly subsided, but there’s no course of action to prevent it in the future. The complexity of this issue underscores the necessity of local monitoring by community members and organizations, according to some researchers. Dr. Christina Hemphill Fuller, an associate professor in Georgia State University’s School of Public Health, researches the effects of air pollution on communities of color. She said communities are using tools like low-cost sensors and smartphone apps to monitor local air pollution. For example, the advocacy nonprofit Air Alliance Houston’s community-based air monitoring network uses low-cost sensors in Latinx and Black neighborhoods near oil and gas refineries in the Houston area. “Part of my research is understanding that the regulatory monitors that are out there aren’t protective of public health in many areas because there’s just not enough of them to really understand where the pollution is in those highly impacted neighborhoods,” Hemphill Fuller said. “That’s why it’s important to do local monitoring.” Historically, redlining, disinvestment, and lack of political power has made Southern communities of color prime targets for industrial polluters, Hemphill Fuller said. According to a 2017 study, Black Americans are 75% more likely than white Americans to live next to a company, industrial, or service facility that directly affects their health or quality of life. Air pollution is already taking its toll on Brunswick residents. Asthma was among the top six diseases self-reported by Glynn residents who responded to a 2019 community needs health assessment conducted by the Southeast Georgia Health System. According to the Georgia Department of Public Health, trachea, bronchus, and lung cancers were the third top cause of premature deaths in Glynn between 2013 and 2017. But getting rid of polluting industries to protect residents’ health is a nuanced issue in Brunswick, where 35% of the population lives in poverty. GP Cellulose and Pinova are two of the top employers in the city, employing 550 and 216 individuals, respectively. Some Brunswick residents would love to see the city’s manufacturing plants disappear, but it doesn’t make sense economically because they’ve supported local families, including many Black families, for generations. By advocating for these industries to adopt more modern technologies that discharge less pollutants, Thompson said Glynn Environmental Coalition is aiming to solve the question: “How do we get them to sustain our economy while also keeping our people healthy and safe?” Dixon said city officials and governmental agencies are reluctant to hold industrial polluters accountable because of the jobs they bring: “They really don’t want to put the finger on any one particular industry and say, ‘You’re responsible for doing this. You need to do something about it.’ I know that it’s the bread and butter for a lot of people, and nobody wants to say, ‘We take responsibility for the odor.’” The neighborhood where Dixon lives, Magnolia Park, used to be a point of pride in Brunswick — home to Black doctors, lawyers, and postal workers. Today, it’s better known for its uphill battles with chemical and nuisance odors. Dixon hears about a lot of her neighbors dying from cancer and wonders whether their deaths are linked to air pollution. “I feel like if this were a Caucasian neighborhood and community,” she said, “more would be done about it.” This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.

As the highly contagious Delta variant continues to spread, many hospitals are reporting record numbers of children being hospitalized, especially in areas with low vaccination rates, including Arkansas, Florida, Missouri and Texas. Dr. Christina Propst, a pediatrician in Houston, says children under 12 who are still ineligible for COVID-19 vaccines are at risk. “They are currently our most vulnerable population, just as this highly transmissible variant is surging across the country,” Propst says. She says Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s order banning mask mandates in schools is a purely political decision that ignores science. ​​“What he is doing is a direct threat to the health and well-being of the children of Texas,” says Propst.

After weeks of fits and starts, the Senate approved a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure plan for states on Aug. 10. A day later, the Senate approved a $3.5 trillion budget resolution sending funding into family, health and environmental programs. All in all, the actions represent delivering a cornerstone of President Joe Biden’s agenda. The impact on Indian Country is significant. Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin, Jr. called the bill a “historic, potentially transformational investment for tribes across this country” in a virtual meeting with President Joe Biden and other leaders Wednesday. During another town hall Wednesday hosted by the National Congress of American Indians, Amber Ebarb, Tlingit, deputy staff director for Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, said the lawmaker has been working hard over the last few months to garner support from the Republican side of the aisle. Ebarb said, like many, they were excited to see the bill’s passage.

Environment & Health Chomsky: We Need Genuine International Cooperation to Tackle the Climate Crisis Politics & Elections Conservative Democrats Are Endangering Humanity. Exhibit A: Kyrsten Sinema. Politics & Elections The Right Wing Wants Misinformation and Manufactured Ignorance, Not Democracy Politics & Elections Trump Pushed Then-DOJ Head Rosen Daily to Probe False Fraud Claims in Late 2020 Politics & Elections Progressives Reject Watered Down Reconciliation Bill in Rebuttal to Sinema Racial Justice Bob Moses Embodied Collective Struggle for Black Freedom and Human Liberation After Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Arizona) threw a bomb into the Democrats’ plan to pass a $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, progressives are fighting back, saying that they won’t accept a bill that doesn’t include and sufficiently address their priorities. “Progressives have been clear from the beginning: a small and narrow bipartisan infrastructure bill does not have a path forward in the House of Representatives unless it has a reconciliation package, with our priorities, alongside it,” said Congressional Progressive Caucus leader Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Washington) in a statement on Wednesday. Sinema said on Wednesday that she doesn’t support a $3.5 trillion bill and said she’d work in the coming months to negotiate the bill. But Democrats had wanted to pass the reconciliation bill in tandem with the bipartisan infrastructure bill before the Senate went into recess in early August, so Sinema’s opposition to the $3.5 trillion proposal as it’s written throws the Democrats’ plan for a loop. The Arizona senator said that she would vote to adopt the budget resolution, which is the first step to getting the reconciliation bill passed. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), who has led the reconciliation bill effort, said Wednesday that the Senate has the required 50 votes needed to adopt the resolution. There’s no guarantee, however, that the bill will pass the whole chamber from there as it is — and, with House progressives standing against watering down the bill, there’s no guarantee it will pass at all if Sinema is successful in shrinking it. The potential blocking of the reconciliation package also means that the bipartisan infrastructure bill, which passed a cloture vote Wednesday night, might be in jeopardy as well. “The votes of Congressional Progressive Caucus members are not guaranteed on any bipartisan package until we examine the details, and until the reconciliation bill is agreed to and passed with our priorities sufficiently funded,” Jayapal said. “The investments we identified months ago are long-standing Democratic priorities, including affordable housing, Medicare expansion, strengthening the care economy, climate action, and a roadmap to citizenship.” The reconciliation bill in its current form contains proposals to address all of these things. Sanders has said that though the bill is a step down from the $6 trillion figure he had originally proposed, the $3.5 trillion bill still contains everything he wants, just for a shorter period of time. Indeed, $3.5 trillion was already a compromise for progressives, many of whom stood behind a $10 trillion infrastructure and climate bill earlier this year. Members of Congress like Representatives Mondaire Jones (D-New York) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) expressed frustration and threatened to pull their support for the bills on Wednesday. “Without a reconciliation package that meets this moment, I’m a no on this bipartisan deal,” Jones said on Twitter. Ocasio-Cortez issued a scathing statement responding to Sinema’s announcement, saying “Good luck tanking your own party’s investment on childcare, climate action, and infrastructure while presuming you’ll survive a 3 vote House margin.” Ocasio-Cortez also pointed out that the bipartisan infrastructure agreement was formed by all white senators. “A lot of times, ‘bipartisan agreements’ are just as defined by who people in power agree to exclude than include,” she wrote. This isn’t the first time progressives have made threats to pull their support for the infrastructure and reconciliation bills. They have been emphasizing for months that they would not support a bill without provisions to address the climate crisis, for instance. They have said that, not only is now perhaps the only time President Joe Biden will get to massively cut emissions, but it’s also an opportunity to demonstrate to potential midterm voters that Democrats deserve to keep their majority in Congress. But the White House is evidently celebrating the bipartisan infrastructure bill anyway, despite the fact that it’s only about a quarter of the size of Biden’s original proposal and excludes vital provisions on climate and raising taxes on wealthy people and corporations to fund the bill. While Biden took a victory lap touting the infrastructure bill Wednesday, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called the items cut out of the infrastructure bill “shiny objects.” But as even just the past weeks have demonstrated, action on climate is anything but trivial, which is why Democrats and progressives have been insistent on keeping addressing climate issues in the bipartisan deal. Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.

Environment & Health New COVID Variants Threaten to Make Pandemic Permanent Economy & Labor COVID Relief Packages Dramatically Reduced Poverty. They Should Be Permanent. Economy & Labor Predatory Banks at Walmarts Made Over 100 Percent of Profits From Overdraft Fees Environment & Health Biden to Set Goal for Half of All Vehicle Sales to Be Electric by 2030 Environment & Health MO Coroner Says He Alters Death Certificates If Families Dislike COVID Inclusion Environment & Health Biden Made Big Compromises on Climate — and Movements That Backed Him Are Livid Most Americans don’t think Donald Trump running for president again in 2024 would be a good thing for the country, a new poll from Quinnipiac University reveals. The survey, which asked a number of questions about elections in 2022 and 2024, revealed challenges and opportunities that both political parties will face in those years relating to voters’ preferences on what type of candidates they want to elect. On the question of the former president’s potential run in 2024, 49 percent of respondents in the poll said they believe Trump will indeed make a run for the nation’s top office that year, while only 39 percent said he would not. On whether his candidacy would be good for the country, only 32 percent said another campaign by Trump to become president would be beneficial. Conversely, 60 percent of Americans say that Trump running for president again would be bad for the country, according to the poll. The former president has not officially indicated whether he will run in 2024 or not, but has made several comments in public hinting that he will. “I do know my answer but I can’t reveal it yet because that has to do with campaign financing and everything else. But I absolutely know my answer,” Trump said when asked if he was running during a Fox News interview last month. “We’re going to do very well and people are going to be very happy.” If Trump does decide to run, he would have high chances of being picked as the Republican Party nominee, as 73 percent of GOP-leaning respondents in the poll viewed his running again as being a good thing. Regarding the midterm elections that are set to commence next year, those taking part in the poll had mixed views about who they wanted to see win. Asked who should run the House of Representatives, 45 percent said they preferred to have Democrats retain control while 42 percent said they wanted Republicans to lead in the House. But the polling results also suggested that Democrats have a possible path to winning in 2022 if they pushed more progressive and ambitious legislation, while simultaneously linking their opponents to Trump. Backing for either political party was well below 50 percent in the Quinnipiac University poll, with only 38 percent of respondents saying they approved of Democrats in Congress, and just 26 percent saying the same about Republicans. But on policies that Democrats are pushing — including a $3.5 trillion spending bill that contains aspects of President Joe Biden’s American Families Plan and American Jobs Plan — there was overwhelming support from voters in the survey, with 62 percent saying they wanted that bill to be made into law and only 32 percent saying they opposed it. Progressive commentators, noting that the party of the president traditionally performs poorly in their first midterm elections race, have suggested that Democrats need to continue promoting big ideas in order to defy historical precedent and win again in 2022. “Democrats need to follow through on Biden’s working assumption: act big and boldly,” wrote The Nation magazine’s editor and publisher Katrina vanden Heuvel in an op-ed for The Washington Post in May. “That means reforms that make a material difference in people’s lives, counter the efforts to suppress the votes, and limit the effect of big money on our elections.” Vanden Heuvel added that Democrats winning in 2022 “isn’t a question of changing rhetoric or dodging Republican insults, it is about getting big things done.” Being anti-Trump won’t hurt, either, as the poll indicated that if Trump endorsed a candidate for office, voters would be less likely to support them. A plurality of respondents in the poll, 41 percent, said that a Trump-backed candidate would make them less likely to want to vote for that person, with 37 percent saying his endorsement wouldn’t matter. For comparison, only 29 percent of respondents said that a candidate endorsed by Biden would make them less likely to vote for a person, with 53 percent saying it’d make no difference. With the midterms still more than a year away, much can change between now and then that could affect either party’s chances of winning. But this poll suggests that the conventional wisdom, that Democrats are inherently poised to lose seats in the House, may not hold true if Democrats take certain actions and follow certain paths. Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.

Last November, just as Minnesota was suffering through a punishing wave of COVID-19, managers at a St. Paul U.S. Postal Service distribution center allowed employees to hold a going-away party in the building. Alejandra Hernandez, a mail handler at that center, was shocked when she saw the gathering: Almost everything about it seemed to violate pandemic safety policies. More than 15 of her colleagues were together in a break room meant for six, chatting, eating and not wearing masks. That day, she filed her second of three complaints to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. “I hoped that someone would come and make them take this seriously,” Hernandez recalled.

Shortly after the Senate passed a $550 billion bipartisan infrastructure package on Tuesday, the Congressional Progressive Caucus said a survey of its nearly 100 members showed that a majority of respondents are prepared to withhold their votes for the newly approved legislation until the upper chamber also greenlights a sweeping reconciliation bill. In a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), three top CPC members led by caucus chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) wrote that their fellow progressive lawmakers were “specifically asked” whether they would “commit to withholding a yes vote on the bipartisan infrastructure deal… until the Senate has passed budget reconciliation legislation deemed acceptable by the Congressional Progressive Caucus.”

Economy & Labor Pelosi Is Wrong – Biden Has the Power to Cancel Student Debt, and He Should Culture & Media Glen Ford’s Journalism Fought for Black Liberation and Against Imperialism Environment & Health EPA Approval of PFAS for Fracking May Spell a New Health Crisis for Communities Politics & Elections Both the Delta Variant and Thin-Willed Democrats Are Lethal to Our Society Environment & Health Biden Promotes $100 Incentives to Encourage Unvaccinated to Get Their Shots Environment & Health Exxon-Influenced Senators Carved Climate Out of Infrastructure Almost Entirely The U.S. Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel said Friday that the Treasury Department is obligated by law to hand former President Donald Trump’s tax returns over to the House Ways and Means Committee, opening the door for Congress to finally obtain the documents after more than two years of legal battles and stonewalling by his administration. “It is about damn time,” Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.), chair of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight, said in a statement. “Our committee first sought Donald Trump’s tax returns on April 3, 2019 — 849 days ago. Our request was made in full accordance with the law and pursuant to Congress’ constitutional oversight powers. And for 849 days, our request has been illegally blocked by a tag-team of the Trump Justice Department and a Trump-appointed judge.” Pascrell went on to applaud Attorney General Merrick Garland for “doing the right thing and no longer using the government to shield a corrupt private citizen.” “This case is now bigger even than Donald Trump’s crimes and impacts whether the Article I branch can conduct effective oversight to impose accountability on the Article II branch,” said Pascrell, referring to the legislative and executive branches of government. “Neither the courts, nor the machinery of our government, exist to bodyguard a corrupt private citizen from transparency.” In a 39-page memo (pdf) sent to the Treasury Department, the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) said that “when one of the congressional tax committees requests tax information pursuant to section 6103(f)(1), and has invoked facially valid reasons for its request, the executive branch should conclude that the request lacks a legitimate legislative purpose only in exceptional circumstances.” “The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee has invoked sufficient reasons for requesting the former president’s tax information,” the memo reads. “Under section 6103(f)(1), Treasury must furnish the information to the committee.” In 2019, Trump’s Treasury Department refused to comply with House Ways and Means Committee chair Rep. Richard Neal’s (D-Mass.) subpoena for the former president’s personal and business tax returns. The committee went on to sue the Treasury Department — then headed by former Goldman Sachs banker Steve Mnuchin — over its obstruction, prompting Trump to file suit against the congressional panel in his capacity as a private citizen. Last September, the New York Times — which obtained Trump tax-return data spanning more than two decades — published a major investigative story detailing how he paid just “$750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency.” “In his first year in the White House, he paid another $750,” the Times reported. “He had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years — largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.” Under a Trump-appointed federal judge’s order, the Treasury Department is required to give Trump’s lawyers 72 hours’ notice before providing the former president’s tax returns to the House Ways and Means Committee, giving Trump a potential opportunity to stop the release of the documents. But that order is set to expire on August 3. In a statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called the OLC memo “a victory for the rule of law, as it respects the public interest by complying with Chairman Neal’s request for Donald Trump’s tax returns.” “The American people deserve to know the facts of his troubling conflicts of interest and undermining of our security and democracy as president,” Pelosi said. This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.

The United States saw unprecedented growth in diversity over the past decade as the white population declined for the first time in history, new census data showed on Thursday. But despite population growth among nonwhite and urban voters, which have been key Democratic voting blocs, Republicans are still expected to hold a decisive edge in the congressional redistricting process. The Census Bureau released data used by states to redraw congressional and legislative districts, showing that while the white non-Hispanic population declined by more than 8% amid the slowest national population growth the country has seen since the 1930s, the Hispanic, Black and Asian-American populations continued to grow. For the first time in U.S. history, the white population has fallen to below 60% of the total.