Chris Hedges's Blog, page 579

Sex Workers Go Mainstream

Suddenly, the emphasis in the term sex workers has shifted to sex workers.

It has happened in a matter of months.

My friends on the left, and some in academia, will say, oh no, it’s been going on for a long time. It has, in certain segments. But not in the mainstream. Not in the general public. Until now.

Much of the credit has to go to Stormy Daniels.

A porn actress is in a dispute with the president of the United States, and the sex worker has more credibility than Trump.

When she appears on television, she is more composed, more coherent and more contained than the petulant, pugnacious president.

His tales are ever-changing. According to him—directly, and through various spokespersons, including Hope Hicks, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Michael Cohen—he never had sex with that woman. Nonetheless, she was paid $130,000. The money came through Michael Cohen, with one of Trump’s pseudonyms on the contract.

Trump, Cohen, and the always-vivid Rudolph Giuliani, have claimed, variously, that Trump didn’t know about the deal, that Cohen fronted the money but never told Trump about it, that Trump never knew about the deal, that Trump personally reimbursed Cohen for it, and—from Giuliani—that law firms like his routinely kept slush funds around to buy people off and wouldn’t trouble their clients with such tawdry knowledge. After he said that, his law firm promptly parted ways with him.

Ms. Daniels appeared on “60 Minutes.” Rhonda Garelick, writing for The Cut, described her as “calm, clear-eyed, and direct, she telegraphed competence and clarity of purpose. She answered questions quickly and without hesitation, never averting her gaze, lowering her eyes, or even pausing. Her words were simple and devoid of rhetorical flourishes.”

Ms. Daniel’s case, or story, has brought forth other sex workers, including Alana Evans and Jessica Drake, both of whom had been in Las Vegas when Stormy met Donald and went up to his hotel room.

Jessica Drake appeared on “Good Morning America” and said that Trump had offered her $10,000 to join them there. With her attorney beside her, she was interviewed by Ari Melber on MSNBC. She was poised and credible. Like Stormy Daniels, she was frank and unembarrassed about what she does for a living. When she talked about turning down the future president, she made it clear that whatever her profession is, she retains the right to be sexual or not be sexual based on her own choices.

Alana Evans, interviewed by Megyn Kelly, had been in Lake Tahoe when Stormy Daniels met Donald Trump and was at least an audio witness that they were in a hotel room together. When Kelly asked if Evans knew any of the specifics of what took place, Ms. Evans blushed like a young Midwest housewife and had to be coaxed into repeating what Stormy Daniels told her about “Donald Trump chasing me around the bedroom in his tighty whities.”

On mainstream TV news, these three sex workers were being treated by the hosts and interviewers with the same considered respect that would have been given to a steelworker or an auto worker. Or even, for that matter, to a banker or congressperson.

That new, heightened respect could be seen in the print pieces about Stormy Daniels. Newsweek called her “wry, smart, and wicked fast,” while “some of her detractors have proved to be … profane, depressing and, yes, salacious.” Time wrote: “Daniels is no slouch, … she has used Twitter to go after Trump supporters who criticize her online with a savage wit.”

A long piece in Rolling Stone has this wonderfully bucolic description of her home life: “Daniels lives with her daughter and partner in a quiet community in the Dallas metro area, where she keeps seven horses, including a pony for her little girl. She’s a nationally ranked equestrian … and her personal Instagram account is of the wife-and-mother variety, riddled with pictures of horses.” Penthouse writes about her as being “known for her work ethic, unflappable demeanor, and standing up for herself,” very much qualities we admire no matter what someone does for a living. Both the Rolling Stone and Penthouse pieces also describe her as blunt and frank about what she does—“I suck dick for a living”—and comfortable in saying so.

What is significant is that this change in the media’s treatment is not restricted to one, singular person. A much wider shift can be detected.

On May 5, The New York Times had a three-column-wide, front-page story with the title, “Who Gets to be Sexy.” Beneath it was this sub-head: “Technology has made it possible for just about anyone to shoot, direct and star in their own porn films. Women are leading the new guard.”

The tone made it sound as if the Business Section was cheering new Silicon Valley start-ups … combined with an embrace of the newest phase of political correctness in the national news. It was full of terms like: “women … puncturing mainstream stereotypes … calling out destructive industry practices … empowered women who want to speak up,” exercising “self-expression and their autonomy,” making “workers less dependent on the boss,” “giving workers more power,” by being “where the power is.”

The piece made the point that things that we see as abuses intrinsic to the sex trade are hardly exclusive to explicit sex work. “We now know … abuses happen on Hollywood film sets and in hotel rooms, on production lines and in offices across America. It’s harder than ever to paint porn as uniquely exploitative.”

Not only that, it put the “exploitations into a larger class framework.” It included this quote from adult star Missy Martinez: “People always feel the need to ask porn stars with the concern if they ‘actually like their job.’ Dude, you work at Verizon. Are YOU okay is the real question.”

That, indeed, is the greater question. Regardless of the sector, is there exploitation? Are people there by choice? Can they stand up for themselves? Where can’t they defend themselves? When is their compensation fair for what they do?

When Stormy Daniels says about her conflict with Trump, “Standing up to bullies is kind of my thing. They started it,” she’s saying something most people only wish they were in a position to say.

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The Case for a Federal Jobs Guarantee

We must not forget the economic frustrations that helped fuel Trump’s election.  For too long, too many Americans have faced lousy jobs or no jobs. One answer: A guaranteed job at a living wage.

The Republican answer won’t work

Republicans continue to push for work requirements for recipients of Medicaid, food stamps, and public housing benefits.  But the real problem is there aren’t enough adequately-paying jobs to go around.

Even today, with a low official unemployment rate, millions who work part-time jobs want full-time work. Millions more are too discouraged to look for work, having endured the brutalities of job discrimination for far too long, or unable to move to where the jobs are.

And a large and growing number of jobs don’t pay enough to get people out of poverty.

A federal jobs guarantee would work

At the same time, a lot of work needs to be done – “greening” our nation’s infrastructure, caring for the elderly, teaching in our public schools, adequately staffing national parks, you name it.

So why shouldn’t the federal government create jobs and connect them directly to people who can’t otherwise find one, with decent, predictable hours and at a living wage?

An added plus: The availability of such jobs would give more bargaining power to many low-wage workers to get better hours and wages – because if they don’t get them from their employer, they’d have the option of a public job. In this way, a federal job guarantee would raise the floor for job quality nationwide.

And a job guarantee would act as a giant economic stabilizer during downturns, when the first to lose their jobs are usually the most economically marginalized.

We can afford it

Can we afford a job guarantee today? Yes. It’s estimated to cost around $670 billion in its first year – $30 billion less than the defense budget.

But that tab would quickly shrink. With more people working at better wages, Americans would have more purchasing power to buy goods and services. This would lead to more hiring by the private sector, and eventually, less need for the federal job guarantee.

More people working would also generate more tax revenue, partially offsetting the direct cost of the job guarantee.

Additional savings would come from fewer people needing public assistance. The Center for Labor Research and Education at Berkeley estimates that the federal government now spends over $150 billion a year because workers aren’t earning enough to get out of poverty. Doesn’t it make more sense to use this money to create guaranteed jobs at a living wage?

So, let’s think beyond Trump – to what Americans need. Few things are more important than a decent job. Full employment through a federal job guarantee makes sense – for workers, for the economy, for America.

EPA Bars News Outlets, Removes Reporter From Hearing

The Environmental Protection Agency “forcibly” blocked reporters from attending a Tuesday summit with EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, at one point grabbing a “reporter by the shoulders” and shoving her out of the building.

As the Associated Press reports, the EPA blocked news organizations including the AP and CNN from attending the meeting on contaminated drinking water.

“Guards barred an AP reporter from passing through a security checkpoint inside the building,” the AP reports. “When the reporter asked to speak to an EPA public-affairs person, the security guards grabbed the reporter by the shoulders and shoved her forcibly out of the EPA building.”

In a statement, EPA spokesperson Jahan Wilcox said the reporters weren’t invited because there wasn’t enough space.

“This was simply an issue of the room reaching capacity, which reporters were aware of prior to the event,” he said. “We were able to accommodate 10 reporters, provided a livestream for those we could not accommodate and were unaware of the individual situation that has been reported.”

Arrested Saudi Women’s Activists Being Denied Access to Lawyers

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Saudi Arabia is holding and interrogating at least 10 women’s rights activists — seven women and three men — without any access to lawyers, according to people familiar with the arrests. The detentions are seen as a culmination of a steady crackdown on perceived critics of the government.

People familiar with the arrests say the activists were allowed just one phone call to worried relatives a week ago, and that one of the women has been held entirely incommunicado. They spoke to The Associated Press late on Monday on condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions.

The sweep began a week ago, on May 15, when police detained the 10 in the capital, Riyadh, and transferred them to the city of Jiddah. Their exact whereabouts now are unknown. Saudi media say the arrests were carried out by forces from the Presidency of State Security, a body that reports directly to the king and crown prince.

Activists told the AP that seven of those detained were involved in efforts to establish a non-government organization called “Amina” that would offer support and shelter to victims of domestic abuse. They had recently submitted their request to the government to establish the NGO.

The arrests cast a pall over recent social openings being pushed by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, including a historic decision to lift the world’s only ban on women driving on June 24.

Amnesty International says Prince Mohammed’s promises of reform “fall flat amid the intensifying crackdown on dissenting voices in the kingdom.”

“His pledges amount to very little if those who fought for the right to drive are now all behind bars for peacefully campaigning for freedom of movement and equality,” said Samah Hadid, Amnesty’s Mideast director.

The crackdown is happening as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have pledged $100 million to a World Bank fund for women entrepreneurs, which President Donald Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, has publicly supported. The Saudi crown prince has openly courted Trump in an effort to counter regional rivals like Qatar and Iran.

When the kingdom issued its royal decree last year announcing that women would be allowed to drive in 2018, women’s rights activists were contacted by the royal court and warned against giving interviews to the media or speaking out on social media.

Following the warnings, some women left the country for a period of time and others stopped voicing their opinions on Twitter. In recent weeks, activists say dozens of women’s rights campaigners have also been banned from traveling abroad.

Several of the recently detained women are seen as icons of the Saudi women’s rights movement and had called for an end to guardianship laws that give men final say over whether a woman can marry, obtain a passport or travel abroad. Their movement was seen as part of a larger democratic and civil rights push in the kingdom.

Their advocacy, though tempered in recent years due to fear of arrest, represented one of the last remaining spaces of activism in the kingdom, where all protests are illegal and where all major decisions rest with King Salman and the crown prince.

Over the past years, authorities have steadily cracked down on human rights defenders, including some dozen members of the now dissolved Saudi Association for Civil and Political Rights, known by its Arabic acronym HASEM. The group’s founding members are serving lengthy prison terms under a sweeping anti-terrorism law dating back to 2014, which defines acts as vague as “defaming the state’s reputation” as terrorism.

The Interior Ministry has not named the 10 arrested but said they are being investigated for communicating with “foreign entities,” working to recruit people in sensitive government positions and providing money to foreign circles with the aim of destabilizing and harming the kingdom.

Pro-government media outlets have splashed some of the women’s photos online and in newspapers, accusing them of being traitors and of belonging to a “spy cell”. The pro-Saudi Asharq al-Awsat newspaper reported the group is being investigated for “using human rights as a pretext to violate the country’s systems.”

Legal experts have been quoted in state-aligned newspapers as saying the group could face up to 20 years in prison, and, although unlikely, charges of treason, which carry the death penalty.

Rights activists, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions, say Loujain al-Hathloul, Aziza al-Yousef and Eman al-Najfan — three well-known Saudi women’s rights activists— are among the 10.

They say Madeha al-Ajroush, Aisha al-Mana and Hessah al-Sheikh — all in their 60s or 70s— are also among the 10 detained. The three took part in the first women’s protest movement for the right to drive in 1990, in which nearly 50 women were arrested for driving and lost their passports and their jobs.

Some of the arrested women are professors at state-run universities.

The arrests have stunned even “the government’s most stalwart defenders,” Saudi writer Jamal Khashoggi wrote in an opinion piece for The Washington Post. He says the message from the arrests is clear: “No independent voice or counter-opinion will be allowed. Everyone must stick to the party line.”

Khashoggi, who fled Saudi Arabia during the start of a wave of mass arrests in the kingdom last year, wrote: “We are expected to vigorously applaud social reforms and heap praise on the crown prince while avoiding any reference to the pioneering Saudis who dared to address these issues decades ago.”

Last year, Prince Mohammed oversaw the arrests of dozens of writers, intellectuals and moderate clerics who were perceived as critics of his foreign policies. He also led an unprecedented shakedown of top princes and businessmen, forcing them to hand over significant portions of their wealth in exchange for their freedom as part of a purported anti-corruption campaign.

Activists say lawyer Ibrahim al-Mudaimigh, who represented several human rights defenders at great personal risk, is also among those detained. He defended al-Hathloul in court when she was arrested in late 2014 for more than 70 days for her online criticism of the government and for attempting to drive from neighboring United Arab Emirates into Saudi Arabia.

Palestinians Seek International Court Investigation of Israel

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Calling it a “historic step” toward justice, the Palestinian foreign minister asked the International Criminal Court on Tuesday to open an “immediate investigation” into alleged Israeli crimes committed against the Palestinian people.

The development was sure to worsen the already troubled relations between the internationally backed Palestinian Authority and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. Peace talks have been frozen for over four years, and contacts between the two sides are minimal.

Speaking to reporters at the ICC in The Hague, Netherlands, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Malki said he submitted the “referral” to the court during a meeting with the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda.

The referral sought an investigation into Israeli policies in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip since the state of Palestine accepted the ICC’s jurisdiction in 2014, he said.

This includes Israeli settlement policies in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, as well as the recent round of bloodshed in the Gaza Strip, where Israeli fire killed over 100 Palestinians during mass protests along the Gaza border, Malki added.

“There is a culture of impunity in Israel for crimes against Palestinians,” Malki said. “This referral is Palestine’s test to the international mechanism of accountability and respect for international law.”

The ICC has been conducting a preliminary probe since 2015 into alleged crimes in the Palestinian territories, including Israel’s settlement policy and crimes allegedly committed by both sides in the 2014 Gaza conflict. Tuesday’s referral could speed up a decision on whether to open a full-blown investigation that could ultimately lead to the indictment of high-ranking Israelis.

The move comes with Israeli-Palestinian relations at their lowest point in years in the aftermath of the U.S. Embassy move to Jerusalem and the recent bloodshed on the Gaza border.

“This is a conduct that requires that we take action and this is why we moved in this regard,” said Palestinian Assistant Minister for Multilateral Affairs Ammar Hijazi, referring to recent Gaza violence.

Israel has said it was defending its border and accused Gaza’s ruling Hamas militant group of using the unrest to carry out attempted attacks and of using civilians as human shields.

In new violence, the Israeli army said it targeted a Hamas observation post in Gaza with tank fire after a group of militants briefly entered Israel and set fire to an Israeli military post. The army said there were no injuries on the Israeli side, and no additional details were immediately available.

In response to Tuesday’s move at the ICC, Israel said it took a “severe view” of the Palestinian request, calling it a “cynical” and “absurd” step. It accused the Palestinians of violent incitement against Israel and exploiting women and children as human shields. It also said the ICC had no jurisdiction in the case because Israel is not a member of the court.

“Israel expects the ICC and its prosecutor not to yield to Palestinian pressure, and stand firm against continued Palestinian efforts to politicize the court and to derail it from its mandate,” the Israeli statement said.

Israel is not a member of the ICC, but its citizens can be charged by the court if they are suspected of committing grave crimes on the territory or against a national of a country that is a member. The ICC has recognized “Palestine” as a member state.

The ICC is a court of last resort — it is authorized to take on cases where national authorities cannot or will not launch prosecutions.

Israel says it has investigated actions by its forces during the Gaza conflict, and says it has opened a number of investigations into the latest Gaza violence as well. But critics say the investigations rarely lead anywhere.

“Israel acts in accordance with independent and thorough judicial review mechanisms, befitting a democratic state, and in accordance with international law,” the Israeli statement said.

While the ICC can indict suspects, it has no police force and has to rely on cooperation from member states to enforce arrest warrants.

Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch, said Bensouda, the chief ICC prosecutor, should now “take steps to open a formal probe aimed at holding perpetrators of serious crimes to account and ensuring impartial and comprehensive justice consistent with the court’s statute.”

The Palestinians appear to have an especially strong case in the matter of settlements. In 2004, the United Nations’ highest judicial organ, the International Court of Justice, ruled in an advisory opinion that the settlements breached international law.

In late 2016, the U.N. Security Council also declared the settlements to be illegal.

Over 600,000 Israelis now live in the West Bank and east Jerusalem — territories sought by the Palestinians as parts of their future state. Israel captured both territories from Jordan in the 1967 Mideast war.

Under international law it is illegal to transfer populations out of or into occupied territory.

Israel claims east Jerusalem as an inseparable part of its capital — though its annexation is not international recognized.

Israel claims the West Bank is not occupied because it was captured from Jordan, not the Palestinians, and Jordan does not make a claim to the territory.

Since the Palestinians never ruled the West Bank, Israel says this territory is disputed and its final status should be resolved in negotiations. It also claims that settlements can be torn down and therefore do not prejudice the final status of the territory. It notes that in the case of Gaza, for instance, it uprooted all settlements there when it withdrew in 2005. Israel also captured Gaza in the 1967 war.

While the Gaza withdrawal removed some 8,000 settlers, the much larger population in the West Bank and east Jerusalem would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to move.

___

Associated Press writer Josef Federman in Jerusalem contributed to this report.

Sugar for Wall Street Daddies, Austerity for the Rest of Us

Truthdig editor’s note: The website Roll Call writes, “The farm bill, which failed on the House floor Friday, will get a second vote June 22 after a vote on a conservative immigration bill earlier that week, House Majority Whip Steve Scalise said Monday.”

We are not a nation of laws. We are a franchise of the global aristocracy. One need only look at the latest farm bill winding its way through Congress to realize that America has been indentured by multinational corporations. As both parties lavish fortunes upon Wall Street, they turn around and gift the rest of us austerity. You have to give it the political class in Washington, D.C.: Democrats and Republicans keep finding more cunning and innovative ways to rob from public Peter to fatten plutocrat Paul.

Like all other legislation that gets enacted by our ever-cagey Congress and signed into law by our duplicitous presidents, the 2018 farm bill is a colossal measure that will impact almost every American—even though the public has almost zero say in the matter. The omnibus package, which is another way of saying wish list for lobbyists, encompasses everything from food production to food distribution, land conservation, social safety net programs like Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and goes as far as redefining who is considered a family member. The revolutionaries of 1776 thought they had it rough with Big Brother telling them how to lead their lives, but the British monarchs had nothing on the American oligarchy.

In all, the Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018 is estimated to cost $421.5 billion over a five-year window. That’s before the Senate gets its dibs and adds to the final tab. While the ever-pliant corporate media was busy going haywire over Donald Trump’s latest buffoonery and gaga over the royal nonsense in Windsor, nepotists in our nation’s capital have been busy greasing the wheels for their benefactors while pinching pennies on the poor and the middle class. Republicans love to echo Jesus on social media and morph into a cabal of pharisees during congressional sessions. This is not to praise Democrats. They spent eight years making it rain helicopter money on Wall Street. Both parties’ primary purpose is to transfer wealth from the many to the gentry.

Even the mildest attempts to rein in the excesses that are shoveled to the corporate oligarchy are swiftly derailed. On Thursday, a sensible measure that would have put restrictions on farm subsidies was voted down. While social welfare programs are being decimated, corporate welfare is alive and well. Socialism is only bad when it applies to the people. Communism is adored when it benefits Wall Street. The U.S. government runs a Ponzi scheme. Within the sugar industry alone, subsidies transfer anywhere from $2.4 billion to $4 billion from consumers into the coffers of behemoth conglomerations like American Sugar Refining Group and agricultural giants like Monsanto.

Instead of investing in public infrastructure and tending to the least among us, politicians on both sides of the aisle would rather throw good money after bad by artificially inflating the price of sugar to appease their donor-patrons. These types of corrupt dealings have innumerable repercussions. The cost of goods keep going up and sugar products are aggressively marketed to keep demand for sugar high, while making it nearly impossible for small and family-owned farms to compete with market leaders.

Ultimately, healthier alternatives are driven out of the marketplace. Companies that offer more nutritious products struggle to remain going concerns and keep up with the competitive advantages enjoyed by junk food peddlers and their suppliers. The net result is a society that is getting emaciated financially to sustain corporations—and being rewarded with an obesity crisis for our unwitting complicity. Our political leaders are incentivizing greed and being paid handsomely by sugar and farm lobbyists for their obsequiousness.

This farm bill contains so many deleterious provisions that a book would be needed to offer context for the endless ways Congress keeps choosing moneyed interests over the public good. Where Democrats are coy about the ways they bolster corporations, Republicans dispense with the chicanery and have no problem advertising their servility to Wall Street. Do you think increased pesticide use, more incidents like Flint’s poisoned pipes and less protection for endangered species is a good thing? If so, you will love this farm bill, which does everything possible to loosen the destructive nature of crony capitalism while restricting the options of the working class and poor to obtain public assistance.

If we were not so busy bickering over red-meat issues and being inundated by one manufactured outrage after another, we would realize that both political parties are colluding to purvey this pervasive level of graft. There is a connective tissue between the anger felt by farming families in rural areas and the discontent felt by city workers in urban America and beyond. All of us are feeling the heat of shrinking opportunities and growing financial anxieties. Sadly, we keep letting our differences blind us to our common strife.

The opioid crisis, the proliferation of mental health issues and the gnawing sense of hopelessness—these and most other social ills are exacerbated by the imbalances of economic policies that cater to the 1 percent while the rest of us are told to eat Twinkies. The three richest Americans hold more wealth than the bottom 50 percent of Americans. This type of consolidated greed and graft is what gave rise to the French Revolution. Priorities are reflected by budgets, and the reason we transformed from a nation of production to a country of consumption is because our political leaders chose to enable vulture capitalists by sacrificing entrepreneurs at the altar of corporatism. Once known as an industrial giant, America is an empire in decline. We bomb nations overseas, build prisons domestically and allow corporations to medicate us with modified foods and synthetic pills.

If we are to reclaim our country and demand a government that works for us, we must understand that all of us—irrespective of our differences—are being fleeced by a bipartisan cabal of corporate courtiers in our nation’s capital. Do not let the refrains of “blue waves” or the chants of “make America great again” deceive you. Both parties are in on this ongoing corporate boondoggle. The farm bill collapsed because the Freedom Caucus demanded more stringent measures on border controls while others demanded yet more cuts from social programs. Republicans are negotiating among themselves to figure out who can be the biggest a-holes.

Predictably, this set off an uproar within the rank-and-file Democrats. This is what the team blue hypocrites have perfected: They act concerned when they are out of office, only to take a hammer to their base the minute they gain the gavel. Nancy Pelosi took to Twitter to feign shock at the cruelty of Republicans. Not even Baghdad Bob had this much chutzpah. This is the same party that transferred more than $14 trillion to Wall Street under Obama’s watch. This is also the party that refused to save homeowners during the Great Recession while giving golden parachutes to banking executives who bled the U.S. economy.

Over the coming weeks, you will see the back-and-forth between Democrats and Republicans as both sides pretend they are fighting to preserve the American way of life. This is what charlatans do. They shout and scream to sedate their respective bases and capture ratings for the media-politico complex.

All of it is a kabuki dance. The farm bill will pass, and it will enrich the fat cats yet again. Away from the camera lights and the hot mics, votes are being counted and constituent concerns are being traded to maximize the gains of various industry giants. I can guarantee you one thing: The final tally will produce a monstrous compromise that will harm the public while once again indulging the gluttony of Wall Street titans. When we stop being blinded by the reality show of politics, the problem becomes evident. If you want to know why our government is warped and doesn’t represent any of us, just follow the money.

It’s a sugar trail that starts with multinational corporations. Its logical end is a kleptocracy that lords over all of us and is turning America to salt.

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Trump Says He Would Sign Prison Reform Bill

Even as the president signals support for federal changes, the country’s private prison system is continuing to expand.

President Trump has said he would sign a federal prison reform bill passed by the House Judiciary Committee last week. The legislation is likely to be voted on in the full House this week.

As reported by The Guardian, some advocates say the reform would immediately release 4,000 federal prisoners. U.S. prisons currently house 2.3 million inmates.

The package includes an expansion of compassionate release and investing millions of dollars in re-entry programs. As of 2017, only 23 percent of released prisoners stay out of prison.

The Guardian reports:

“Nobody wins when former prisoners fail to adjust to life outside or worse, end up back behind bars,” Trump said. “We want former inmates to find a path to success so they can support their families and support their communities.”

Even if it passes in the House, the bill faces an uphill climb in the Senate, not because there isn’t support for it, but because key lawmakers feel the bill does not go far enough. Unlike prior attempts at federal reform legislation which also would have relaxed criminal sentencing, especially on drug crimes, the current bill only deals with policies that affect people who are already incarcerated.

“For any criminal justice reform proposal to win approval in the Senate, it must include … sentencing reforms,” the Republican judiciary committee chairman, Chuck Grassley, said in a statement last week. Grassley was one of the chief animating forces behind a much more comprehensive bill that had been building momentum on both sides of the aisle in 2016 but that essentially disappeared from view after Trump’s surprise victory.

But advocates like Jessica Jackson-Sloan, the policy director for #cut50, a criminal justice reform advocacy group, are hoping to get lawmakers to see the bill, called the First Step Act, as just that.

Even as lawmakers are considering federal prison reform, the U.S. private prison system is growing and generating big profits for companies. According to a new report released by the Corrections Accountability Project, over 3,100 corporations, 2,500 of which are privately traded companies, profit from the American prison system.

One example is the Stewart Detention Center in Georgia. Under a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), CoreCivic, the largest prison corporation in the U.S., made a net income in 2017 of $178 million. The Guardian reports that many immigrants housed there while awaiting determination of their cases lacked adequate food and were receiving just 50 cents an hour for work.

According to a lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center, some of the detainees working in Stewart were paid as little as $1 a day. Those who refused to work were threatened with solitary confinement and the loss of food, clothing, personal hygiene facilities and contact with loved ones.

In response to the lawsuit, U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas and 17 other Republican House members wrote a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions, ICE and the Department of Labor asking Sessions to help the private prison company GEO Group defend itself in lawsuits by former detainees.

CoreCivic gave $295,642 in political contributions during the 2016 election cycle, and Smith was one of the recipients. Private prison companies contributed $1.6 million during the 2016 federal election.

Trump in 2016 called for more privatization, saying, “Private prisons seems to work a lot better.”

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Rural Whites Shielded From Medicaid Work Requirement Rules

In April, President Trump signed an executive order allowing some Medicaid recipients to be exempted from requirements that they find  jobs or lose their health insurance. Now, the states taking advantage of the order, called “Reducing Poverty in America,” are facing scrutiny for allegedly creating policies that, as Talking Points Memo (TMP) reports, “would in practice shield many rural, white residents from the impact of the new rules.”

Kentucky and Ohio are applying for the waivers that the executive order allows. Each of their proposals include exemptions for the counties with the highest unemployment, which happen to be mostly white, GOP-voting and rural. In contrast, according to TMP, “many low-income people of color who live in high-unemployment urban centers would not qualify, because the wealthier suburbs surrounding those cities pull the overall county unemployment rate below the threshold.”

Those urban areas may have unemployment rates equal to or worse than the counties exempted from the requirements, but they’re not white and they don’t vote Republican.

As Sarah Rosenbaum, a health law professor at George Washington University, told TMP: “This is sort of a version of racial redlining where they’re identifying communities where the work requirements will be in full effect and others where they will be left out.” She continued, “When that starts to result in racially identifiable areas, that’s where the concern increases.”

In addition, these waiver proposals may violate Title 6 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans race-based discrimination in federal poverty-assistance programs.

Kentucky’s waiver, which was approved in January, will first be imposed in northern Kentucky, which has a higher proportion of black residents than the rest of the state.

Even before these waiver proposals, Trump’s executive order was already under fire from anti-poverty groups for placing undue burdens on Americans who are already struggling to make ends meet, and, critics say, perhaps over-inflating the number of people on Medicaid who don’t work. As The New York Times reported in April:

A 2017 study of Michigan’s Medicaid program by the University of Michigan Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation found that three-quarters of those enrolled in the program were already working or physically unable to do so. Another 12 percent were people likely to be exempt, including the elderly and students.

In fact, “It’s a little bit of a solution in search of a problem,” Elaine Waxman said of the work requirements. Waxman is a senior fellow with the nonpartisan Urban Institute and has studied food assistance programs and other government entitlements.

A federal court challenge to Kentucky’s waiver is set to be decided in June.

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Google Removes ‘Don’t Be Evil’ From Company Code of Conduct

Is Google finally embracing its evil side?

The company has reportedly stripped from its employee code of conduct a section outlining its longtime unofficial motto, “Don’t be evil,” provoking a swift reaction on social media: “File under: ‘Evil is fine now.’ ” “Glad this question has been settled!” “Google has finally done what was inevitable—abandoned informal commitment to its founding principle.”

When the company restructured in 2015, Alphabet—Google’s new parent company—was widely condemned for its watered down replacement, “Do the right thing,” but Google’s maintained the “Don’t be evil” language in its official code of conduct. That all changed “sometime in late April or early May,” Gizmodo reported Friday, after reviewing archives on the Wayback Machine.

According to a Wayback Machine archive from April 21, 2018, the related section of the code of conduct read:

“Don’t be evil.” Googlers generally apply those words to how we serve our users. But “Don’t be evil” is much more than that. Yes, it’s about providing our users unbiased access to information, focusing on their needs and giving them the best products and services that we can. But it’s also about doing the right thing more generally—following the law, acting honorably, and treating co-workers with courtesy and respect.

The Google Code of Conduct is one of the ways we put “Don’t be evil” into practice. It’s built around the recognition that everything we do in connection with our work at Google will be, and should be, measured against the highest possible standards of ethical business conduct. We set the bar that high for practical as well as aspirational reasons: Our commitment to the highest standards helps us hire great people, build great products, and attract loyal users. Trust and mutual respect among employees and users are the foundation of our success, and they are something we need to earn every day.

So please do read the Code, and follow both its spirit and letter, always bearing in mind that each of us has a personal responsibility to incorporate, and to encourage other Googlers to incorporate, the principles of the Code into our work. And if you have a question or ever think that one of your fellow Googlers or the company as a whole may be falling short of our commitment, don’t be silent. We want—and need—to hear from you.

The updated section, visible as early as May 4, reads:

The Google Code of Conduct is one of the ways we put Google’s values into practice. It’s built around the recognition that everything we do in connection with our work at Google will be, and should be, measured against the highest possible standards of ethical business conduct. We set the bar that high for practical as well as aspirational reasons: Our commitment to the highest standards helps us hire great people, build great products, and attract loyal users. Respect for our users, for the opportunity, and for each other are foundational to our success, and are something we need to support every day.

So please do read the Code and Google’s values, and follow both in spirit and letter, always bearing in mind that each of us has a personal responsibility to incorporate, and to encourage other Googlers to incorporate, the principles of the Code and values into our work. And if you have a question or ever think that one of your fellow Googlers or the company as a whole may be falling short of our commitment, don’t be silent. We want—and need—to hear from you.

“Despite this significant change, Google’s code of conduct says it has not been updated since April 5, 2018,” Gizmodo noted. Additionally, the last sentence of the code is still “And remember… don’t be evil, and if you see something that you think isn’t right—speak up!”—but without any further context on the phrase and its history at the company.

Critics of Google have long used the phrase as a rallying cry to challenge practices and policies that strike them as “evil,” from concerns about what the company does with users’ personal data to its increasing contract wrokg with the U.S. military.

Invoking the longtime motto, a dozen employees recently resigned and some 4,000 have signed on to a petition demanding that Google immediately halt its once-secret work on drones for the Pentagon, which was revealed in a pair of reports published earlier this year. Some critics tied the latest move to the drone program:

Google removed “don’t be evil” from its Code of Conduct just in time to work on military grade image recognition ML software for a Pentagon tactical drone program. https://t.co/X1OO82PAMP

— Mike Rundle (@flyosity) May 20, 2018

Guess the cognitive dissonance between working on drone weapons-targeting systems and the quaint notice of “don’t be evil” got too loud at Google. #FreeToBeEvil https://t.co/Xg6rZjWTe6

— DHH (@dhh) May 19, 2018

The report about Google’s apparent decision to ditch the phrase as a foundational corporate principle was followed by a segment on CBS’s “60 Minutes” Sunday that sought to answer the question, “How did Google get so big?” and explore the implications of its power, both for users and other tech companies.

As Silicon Valley antitrust lawyer Gary Reback explained, “Google is so dominant in search and search advertising that analysts and venture capitalists in Silicon Valley say it’s extremely difficult for startups to get funding if their business model requires them to compete with Google for ad revenue.”

“If I were starting out today, I would have no shot of building Yelp. That opportunity has been closed off by Google and their approach,” said Yelp founder Jeremy Stoppelman. “Because if you provide great content in one of these categories that is lucrative to Google, and seen as potentially threatening, they will snuff you out.”

Beyond the consequences for small and startup businesses in the tech industry, there’s also an impact on Google users, and internet users more broadly. As Reback put it: “People tell their search engines things they wouldn’t even tell their wives. I mean, it’s a very powerful and yet very intimate technology. And that gives the company that controls it a mind-boggling degree of control over our entire society.”

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National Parks Report on Climate Change Finally Released, Uncensored

This story was originally published by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting, a nonprofit news organization based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Learn more at revealnews.org and subscribe to the Reveal podcast, produced with PRX, at revealnews.org/podcast.

Backing away from attempts at censorship, the National Park Service on Friday released a report charting the risks to national parks from sea level rise and storms.

Drafts of the report obtained earlier this year by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting showed park service officials had deleted every mention of humans causing climate change. But the long-delayed report, published Friday without fanfare on the agency’s website, restored those references.

The scientific report is designed to help 118 coastal parks plan for protecting natural resources and historic treasures from the changing climate.

Maria Caffrey, the study’s lead scientist, said she was “extremely happy” that it was released intact.

“The fight probably destroyed my career with the (National Park Service) but it will be worth it if we can uphold the truth and ensure that scientific integrity of other scientists won’t be challenged so easily in the future,” said Caffrey, a University of Colorado research assistant who had worked on the report for five years.

The Reveal story, published in April, prompted some Democrats in Congress to seek an investigation of scientific integrity at the park service to see whether Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke or President Donald Trump’s other political appointees are censoring science.  Zinke said at a House sub-committee hearing that he had been unaware of the changes, which Reveal uncovered shortly after he told Congress that he would never change a scientific report. The Interior Department’s office of inspector general has launched an initial review, according to Nancy DiPaolo, the office’s director of external affairs.

The controversy reflects a broader challenge faced by scientists who work for and with the federal government today because of the Trump administration’s attitude toward science, particularly related to climate change.

When Caffrey resisted the editing of the report, she said National Park Service officials warned her that it would not be released if she refused to accept the deletions or that it might be released in an edited form without her name on it.

“It’s different kinds of bullying and pressure from different people,” Caffrey said. “After awhile it starts to build up, and it becomes an absolute mountain.”

Earlier drafts showed that a park service official crossed out the word “anthropogenic,” the term for people’s impact on nature, in five places. Three references to “human activities” causing climate change also were removed.

But after Reveal disclosed the attempts at censorship, park service officials agreed to restore Caffrey’s original text. The context about the human role in climate change is important to the findings because it more clearly estimates the extent of the threat under various scenarios: Many parks face more severe flooding if greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase.

Jeffrey Olson, a spokesman for the park service, characterized the editing as a disagreement among authors. Asked why the references were restored, Olson said in an email, “Discussions between authors over report language resulted in agreement over the use of several terms, including climate change and anthropogenic climate change.”

The report was originally drafted in the summer of 2016. Olson said “ongoing deliberation among report authors” contributed to the delay, as well as “multiple rounds of internal and external review to ensure the accuracy and usability of the final product.”

Olson declined to be interviewed, as did the other authors of the report, which was published by the parks service with no news releases or social media promotion.

According to the findings, the fate of coastal parks depends on choices people make about reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The report estimates sea level rise under four different climate change scenarios. The report also estimates how much flooding 79 parks would face from storm surges.

Parks in North Carolina’s Outer Banks face the greatest sea level rise of any national parks. If greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, the sea level near Wright Brothers National Memorial is projected to rise 2.7 feet by 2100. But if there is a substantial reduction in greenhouse gases, the increase would be 1.7 feet, according to the report.

“The park may be almost completely flooded if a Category 2 or higher hurricane strikes on top of inundation from sea level rise,” the report says.

Large areas of nearby parks, such as Cape Hatteras and Cape Lookout seashores, are projected to be underwater by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions keep rising, even without storms. The same plight faces other parks, particularly on the East Coast, including Padre Island National Sea Shore in Texas and Fire Island in New York. Several Civil War forts also face significant flooding.

Elizabeth Shogren can be reached at eshogren@revealnews.org. Follow her on Twitter: @ShogrenE.

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