Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 108

Culture of trust is key for school safety

When we first visited the school that is the focus of our forthcoming book, “Navigating Conflict: How Youth Handle Trouble in a High-Poverty School,” back in 1995, students were free to move about campus during lunch and other free periods and a culture of trust prevailed.

All that changed during the 1999-2000 school year. That’s when a new principal arrived at the school – a racially diverse, urban school in the Southwest. School renovation started with funding secured in the name of “safe schools.”

Bushes, trees and lockers were deemed security hazards and removed. Security gates and metal detectors were installed. School officials hired more security personnel and cut back students’ freedom of movement on campus dramatically. The school implemented “sweeps,” which meant any student without a signed pass found outside of class or the designated eating area would be escorted to a room called the “tank,” where they would be detained for the remainder of the school day. Students who violated restrictive rules related to movement on campus faced heavy discipline, which included an automatic parent conference followed by up to five days of out-of-school suspension.

Teachers and students began to voice concerns about the tightened security to each other and protested to the administration. All this set up an interesting case for us to examine as field researchers who study conflict in organizations.

Ironically, what we found is that the tightened security measures eroded the ethos of trust that facilitated peace among students. Notably, whereas before students settled conflict peacefully among themselves, now peer violence increased on campus, which is something we discovered in our field research and that was corroborated with school district and local law enforcement data. The average annual number of police calls from the campus nearly quadrupled after the implementation of the new security measures. Before the tightened security, school district data revealed that the school was as safe as any in the district, including suburban schools in the surrounding area.

We continued to observe the high school in the 2000s, returning for intensive fieldwork in 2008 after we learned the school had a new principal. Heavy disciplinary measures were relaxed, and students regained some freedom to move about campus.

The new principal recognized the importance of youth-centered teachers. Students once again turned to predominantly peaceful actions to handle conflicts, as found by our field data and corroborated by institutional data.

Why trust matters

From our perspective, what our 16 years of field experience at this particular school shows is that target hardening, more police presence and heavier discipline all have a corrosive effect on school culture and security. Our finding squares with other researchers who have found that schools with robust social trust experience less peer violence and conflict than schools where distrust prevails. The question is why?

Social trust leads to freedom of association and movement on campus for youth, which in turn enables youth to cross social divides and develop relationships with other kids. In a trusting environment, like the campus we studied, youth learn to empathize with peers who are different than they are, taking the hard edge off of stereotypes based on race. Inclusive student clubs, supported by teachers, reinforced a sense of social belonging on the campus. Even in this environment, some peer groups faced difficulties tied to their social identities, especially new immigrant youth from Mexico.

Youth skills

Another important lesson from our book is that youth continuously work on their skills at handling peer conflict. Coupled with the socialization learned from senior students and teachers, youth in schools where trust runs high develop skills for working out their troubles by talking, getting support from those not directly involved in disputes, avoiding one another until emotions cool, and educating or correcting troublesome youth.

Our point is not that youth should be left alone, or that they’re perfectly rational (they’re not) and will work out all their problems on their own.

Rather, it is our contention that youth have a pretty good fix on dangerous threats among their peers and can peg these threats, distinguishing them from the everyday troubles they face with one another. Adults need to pay close attention to the knowledge and skills of youth in handling peer conflict, and keep their ears to the ground as to what youth are saying about who’s truly dangerous and who’s not.

Youth-centered teachers

Another lesson is the importance of youth-centered teachers operating actively in the social environment of the school. These teachers are highly attentive to the education and safety of their students. They care about students’ lives, learning and comportment, and regard the entire school campus, not just their classroom, as their place.

Youth-centered teachers monitor students in and out of the classroom in supportive ways that facilitate building social trust. Student clubs figure prominently. This is because clubs offer opportunities for youth-centered teachers to open their classrooms as meeting spaces and collaborate with young people to formulate goals that respond to the changing needs of diverse students.

Youth-centered teachers also show a strong inclination to keep their commitments to youth and an inclusive school culture. They defend these practices during times of adversity.

Effective leadership

School principals are most effective when they know how to develop a shared vision with students and staff. In our view, these shared visions must be sustained from the bottom up rather than the top down. The most effective principals we observed knew how to empower youth-centered teachers and meaningful, inclusive youth agency in student governments and clubs. This led to social trust and a shared ability to respond to problems when they arose.

The bottom line, in our opinion, is that in an era of budgetary constraints, fostering an environment for youth-centered teachers and students to build cultures of trust will likely have better payoffs for school safety than further investments in the fortification of public school campuses.

Calvin Morrill, Stefan A. Riesenfeld Professor of Law and Professor of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley and Michael Musheno, Professor of Law, University of Oregon

John Boehner’s change of heart signifies shifting attitudes towards pot

AP/Getty/Salon

Momentum in the movement to legalize marijuana has stalled under the Trump administration. Indeed, the administration's ultraconservative views on crime and drugs don't bode well for the campaign to legalize a Schedule 1 drug, the same legal echelon as heroin by the rules of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Yet a shift in tide may be on the way, partly thanks to former Speaker of the House John Boehner, who in 2011 said he was  “unalterably opposed” to the drug’s legalization.

Flash forward to 2018, and he’s had a change of heart. Boehner, along with former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld, have been appointed to the Board of Advisors at Acreage Holdings, a multi-state cannabis business that aims to "make cannabis available to any patient who can benefit from safe and reliable access."

Acreage Founder and CEO Kevin Murphy told Salon the organization connected with Boehner through mutual friends. Boehner began to have a shift in perspective when he started to learn about the medical successes patients had had with marijuana.

“I asked him if he wanted to participate with us here at Acreage and he graciously accepted and I couldn’t be more thrilled,” Murphy said. “John and Bill and very compassionate men; they want to help others. People have their different views of politicians, but these are two men who care about their constituents. They are real people who want to make a difference.”

In a joint statement with Weld, the two said, “While we come at this issue from different perspectives and track records, we both believe the time has come for serious consideration of a shift in federal marijuana policy.”

Boehner echoed his sentiments on Twitter on Wednesday, officially, citing that his “thinking” on the issue has “evolved.”

“I’m convinced de-scheduling the drug is needed so we can do research, help our veterans, and reverse the opioid epidemic ravaging our communities,” he wrote on Twitter.

I’m joining the board of #AcreageHoldings because my thinking on cannabis has evolved. I’m convinced de-scheduling the drug is needed so we can do research, help our veterans, and reverse the opioid epidemic ravaging our communities. @AcreageCannabis https://t.co/f5i9KcQD0W

— John Boehner (@SpeakerBoehner) April 11, 2018

Not all responses on Twitter were positive. Some people on Twitter were quick to criticize, others were surprised, and some — presumably from his own party — alluded to a sense of betrayal. Indeed, Boehner voted against legalizing marijuana in Washington D.C. when it was on the ballot in 1999.

Despite constituents’ reactions, Murphy told Salon he wasn’t surprised by Boehner’s shift in perspective.

“Was it a surprise to me? No, because it was a surprise to me that I would be engaged in this business as well. The fact of the matter is if you asked me 10 to 15 years ago what I think of cannabis, I’d say not much,” he said. “People are entitled to grow and change their mind, that is why you see change in social buy-in.”

Recent polls show that Boehner isn’t the only one to change his mind on the traditionally politically polarized topic. In January 2018, Pew Research Center published a report on the increasing support for the legalization of marijuana among the American public; six-in-ten Americans said yes, the use of marijuana should be legalized. The study capped off a slow, but steady upward trend that’s been on happening over the last decade; 18 years ago, in 2000, only 31 percent of Americans thought weed should be legalized, according to Pew Research Center.

Indeed, the issue is more popular with those of a certain age than others. In the same 2018 study, 70 percent of Millennials declared support for marijuana legalization; 66 percent were Gen Xers, and 56 percent were Baby Boomers. A Gallup Poll from October 2017 had similar findings.

While Boehner is relatively late to the pro-legalization game, some political candidates — including the actress Cynthia Nixon — have made marijuana legalization a top priority in their campaigns. Nixon, who is running for governor of New York state, told the New York Times that the legalization of marijuana is a “moneymaker” and a “justice issue.”

“We have people, particularly African-American men, sitting in jail for something that white people do with impunity,” she told The Times.

Nixon said “one-hundred percent” it should be legalized in New York State.

Of course, marijuana has one powerful stalwart opponent who holds a great deal of sway in Washington: Jeff Sessions. Attorney General Sessions has vehemently disapproved of the movement and rescinded memos, issued by the Obama administration, that protected states that have legalized marijuana. For Sessions, marijuana constitutes a moral hazard that precludes him from supporting the drug’s legalization. “Good people don’t smoke marijuana,” he once said. He also sent a letter to the governor and attorney general of Washington State, saying that Congress had “determined that marijuana is a dangerous drug and that the illegal distribution and sale of marijuana is a crime.” Sessions has also claimed that the legalization of marijuana is linked to violent crime.

Yet researchers have found that there has been a decrease in drug-trafficking-related crimes in states bordering Mexico that have introduced medical marijuana laws. The IZA Institute of Labor Economics published a paper on crime and the legalization of marijuana that suggested there were links between Washington’s legalization of the drug and a decline in crime rates of rape, robbery and burglary.

California's proposition 64, which legalized recreational marijuana, has also cut penalties for many marijuana-related offenses, and anyone who is currently incarcerated, on probation, on parole, or under community supervision can petition to have a sentence reduced or a charge reduced to a misdemeanor.

As more states are expected to put the issue on the 2018 ballot, one wonders if hard-line opponents will be more likely to follow Boehner’s lead. Could Boehner be blazing a trail?

Those in the cannabis industry hope so.

“It is encouraging to see the conservatives in the Republican party coming around to appreciate the value cannabis has in supporting overall health and driving economic activity in communities nationwide," Tim McGraw, CEO of Canna-Hub, a cannabis real estate portfolio in California, told Salon. "Boehner's involvement with a cannabis advisory firm is further evidence that both sides of the aisle are coming together to agree with the more than 75 percent of Americans who oppose prohibition."

The high costs of American military tourism

Getty/Photo Montage by Salon

I want to suggest a new way to look at the wars this country has been engaged in for the last 17 years. Think back to the last time you visited a foreign country. What did you do? If you’re anything like me, you probably sampled the local cuisine and you went sightseeing, which is to say, you walked around and observed the fashionable scene on the streets of Paris, or maybe you bought mangoes from the ladies selling fruits in a local market on the island of St. Lucia, or you had a look at the ruins of a castle in the Dordogne, or the Forum in Rome.

In other words, you were a tourist, and you did what tourists do. There was an unspoken agreement between you and the people of the place you visited. You spent some money in the local economy, and you had a look at how the local culture and people, and they took your money and went about their lives and let you look at them, and you went home. Then other tourists came over and replaced you.

That’s pretty much what we’ve been doing for 17 years in Afghanistan, and 15 years in Iraq, and by now, a couple of years in Syria — not to mention the decades we’ve spent in and out of dozens of other hot spots around the globe like Niger and Djibouti and Somalia. It’s military tourism. We sent hundreds of thousands — even millions at this point — of heavily armed soldiers wearing helmets and bulletproof vests, carrying loads of ammunition and M-4 automatic rifles and machine guns, and they traveled around on foot or in armored personnel carriers and tanks, and we spent a whole lot of money, and they had a look around, and they went home. And then we sent more.

You know what we have to show for all of our years of military tourism? Nothing. The only thing we’ve accomplished is killing thousands of young men and women and wounding even more of them, not to mention killing god-only-knows how many hundreds of thousands of locals, whether they were “enemies” or “civilians.” We blew up thousands of acres of cities and towns and villages, or we left them to sectarian forces like ISIS to blow up after we left. What have we got to show for all of that?

Nothing.

We’re doing the same thing today we’ve done for seventeen years, only now we’re doing it Trump-style, as he jumps around from commitment to disdain, from let’s-get-the-troops-out to send-in-the-bombs. Giving a speech that was alleged to be about infrastructure at a rally in Ohio last month, Trump suddenly declared: “We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now!” The Wall Street Journal later reported that Trump had suspended more than $200 billion scheduled to be spent on Syrian recovery. Last week at a White House press conference with leaders of the Baltic states, Trump said, “I want to get out. I want to bring our troops back home. . . . It’s time.” White House aides were so alarmed, they arranged for Trump to meet with his national security team in the situation room, and they got him to agree not to immediately pull out the 2,000 troops currently serving in Syria. But Trump “pressed” the Secretary of Defense and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and got them to agree we’d be in Syria “months, not years,” according to the Washington Post.

Four days later, more than 40 people were killed in a chemical attack by Syrian government aircraft on a rebel-held neighborhood near Damascus. By Sunday morning, Trump was tweeting.

Many dead, including women and children, in mindless CHEMICAL attack in Syria. Area of atrocity is in lockdown and encircled by Syrian Army, making it completely inaccessible to outside world. President Putin, Russia and Iran are responsible for backing Animal Assad. Big price...

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 8, 2018

 

....to pay. Open area immediately for medical help and verification. Another humanitarian disaster for no reason whatsoever. SICK!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 8, 2018

Now what? Well, Trump will probably order another “surgical strike” on the Syrian air force, like he did last year when he sent 79 Tomahawk missiles into a largely deserted airfield and took out several dozen vintage MIGs the Syrians had parked there. Our troops who are said to be cleaning out the remnants of ISIS forces in Syria will continue to drive around in their armored Humvees and MRAPs, and we’ll spend a whole bunch more money, and then like Trump promised, we’ll go home.

That’s what military tourism is. It was like that when I was in Iraq way back in 2003 with the 101st Airborne Division in and around Mosul. I spent a week with an infantry company headquartered in an Iraqi social security office they had seized. One day, I went out on a patrol with about a dozen soldiers. They suited up in their armored vests, and I put on my armored vest, and they grabbed their M-16’s, and we walked around the streets of Mosul for about two hours. Half way through the patrol, I asked a sergeant what we were doing out there. “Don’t you know what this is, sir?” he asked. I answered, no. “It’s a presence patrol, sir,” he explained. I told him I’d never heard of a “presence patrol” before and asked him what it was. “Well, we call it a target patrol, sir,” the sergeant explained. He pointed at the people on the street around us, ordinary Iraqis, walking around doing whatever it was they were doing. “They’re the enemy, and we’re the target.”

We were walking down a street lined with little stores, crowded with ordinary citizens of Mosul out doing their afternoon shopping. About an hour later, we passed through the gates of our compound and I asked the sergeant what we had accomplished during our three hour patrol.

“Nothing, sir. Absolutely nothing,” he said as he took off his helmet and combat vest.

Every single Iraqi we had walked past knew the soldiers from the 101st would soon be going home. Hell, there was a TV in every tea shop and smokehouse we passed, and news about the 101st going home had been on CNN International. Sure enough, about a month later, the 101st loaded up, and did just that. They went home.

The following year, I was in Afghanistan visiting with a farmer and his family at the compound along the banks of the Kunar River, between Jalalabad and Asadabad near the border with Pakistan. The farmer was explaining to me the problems they had getting irrigation water to their crops, and why he was raising mostly poppies for opium, rather than wheat, the other cash crop in the valley. It seemed that getting his wheat crop was a problem because the local roads were so bad, grain trucks could no longer negotiate passage to their fields. But the warlords sent guys around to collect the opium and paid on the spot during the harvest, he said. Simple. He had to feed his family. What could he do?

I asked the farmer about the Taliban, whether he had any problems with them. He took me up the hill, closer to the mud brick wall of his compound, and pointed to three other compounds nearby. Like his, they had 20 foot high walls that surrounded multiple buildings inside where he and his extended family lived. The walls were necessary to protect livestock at night from marauding wolves in the nearby mountains. They were pockmarked by mortar and rifle fire, proving they were good for another kind of protection as well. The next compound down was a Taliban family, he said, and so was the one after that, but the third wasn’t. His matter-of-fact tone was like he was talking about Republicans and Democrats. Those two weren’t in his party, while the other one was.

Across a field a short distance away, an American military convoy rumbled past, maybe 20 Humvees moving along at 15 to 20 miles an hour, stirring up clouds of dust. The convoy was headed to an American base in Asadabad, about 20 miles away. The base had been there for three years. I asked him if any of the American Army guys had ever stopped, if he’d ever met or talked to any of them since they arrived back in 2001. Never, he said. The farmer didn’t know anyone who had talked to an American. In fact, I was the first American he had ever met. The American soldiers in the convoy, like the soldiers who served in the years before them, were doing one year tours in Afghanistan. Soon, they would be going home.

Now our soldiers are involved in fighting the remnants of ISIS around the town of Manbij, just east of Aleppo in Syria, where just over a week ago, one American soldier was killed and another wounded in the explosion of a roadside IED. How’s it going over in Syria these days, you ask? It’s very difficult to say. In fact, a recent New York Times story about the visit of two American generals to the front lines near Manbij struggled to explain the situation. 

One of the Americans, Lt. General Paul Funk, overall commander of the coalition forces in Syria, was talking with Muhammed Abu Adel, commander of the Manbij Military Council. “The lasting defeat of ISIS is the most important mission for this group,” General Funk told Commander Adel, according to the Times.

But there was a problem. Adel was a Kurd, and American military support for the fighters around Manjib “has particularly alarmed Turkey,” reported the Times. The Turks are at war with the Kurds over the city of Afrin, about 80 miles west of Manbij, while threatening Manbij to with their ally militias, the Free Syrian Army in order to “make the Americans depart, so that the Syrian militias aligned with Turkish forces can take it from America’s Kurdish-led allies.”

“But in Manbij, both the Americans and the Kurds insist, the defending forces is the Manbij Military Council, an ally of the Syrian Democratic Forces, but independent and composed mostly of Arab fighters.”

Got that? Manbij Military Council? Syrian Democratic Forces? Free Syrian Army? Neither do I, and neither apparently did the American generals. The Times reported that in describing the American mission in Syria, General Funk said he preferred to “maintain focus on the enemy in front you and mow him down — that’s much easier than having to look in multiple directions.” But “multiple directions” are all that’s there to see over there in Syria, and Iraq and Afghanistan. Everywhere you look another faction, or militia, or religious sect, or persecuted minority.

I can tell you this much. Even if Trump orders another big missile strike against Bashar Assad’s air forces, or any other target for that matter, there is one thing all of them over there understand, no matter which “militia” or “military council” or “Free Syrian Army” they’re in. When the American military is finished spending money and looking around, they’ll go home. Because that’s what tourists do, military or otherwise. They visit foreign lands, and then they go home. In Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria, just like they did in Vietnam almost 50 years ago, they leave the locals one hell of a mess to clean up.

“Made in Cambodia” explores the human cost of cheap clothes

Asad Faruqi

Be warned: watch “Made in Cambodia” on Salon Premium and you may never look at the clothes in your closet the same way again. But that’s a good thing. Asad Faruqi was enlisted by the non-profit organization, Remake, to direct a film that follows three New York City Parsons fashion school students as they travel to Cambodia to examine the conditions of garment workers.

You can watch the full documentary "Made in Cambodia"  on Salon Premium, our new ad-free, content-rich app. Here's how. 

Faruqi spoke with Salon about his powerful film, “Made in Cambodia,” which should move you to tears or, perhaps, to forever change your wardrobe.

How did the project, and your involvement, come together?

I directed “Made in Cambodia” for a San Francisco based advocacy organization called Remake, whose mission is to make fashion a force for good. Their founder Ayesha Barenblat and I are from the same hometown in Karachi, Pakistan and I was intrigued by Remake's focus to put a human face to the invisible women who make our clothes in factories around the world. We first collaborated on a different short: "Made in Pakistan." When the opportunity arose to shoot in Cambodia with next-generation fashion designers coming face to face with factory workers, I jumped at the chance to direct the project.

Can you tell us about a particularly memorable moment from the production?

We first met one of the workers, Sreyneang, at a mass production factory. She had been working in factories since she was a child. The Parsons students immediately bonded with her. She wanted to see pictures of their university in New York and spontaneously invited us all to her home. That was a really powerful moment — to be able to see how she lived and meet her daughters. Her love and generosity — she insisted everyone stay to have a meal with her — really moved us. She wanted the world to know her story.

Another memorable moment was during a really rainy day where we drove an hour out of Phnom Penh to a safe location where workers from subcontracted factories (the likes of Zara, H&M and Tommy Hilfiger) had gathered to share their stories with us. One of the women, Char Wong was a force of nature. The eloquence with which she described the impossible output incentive targets set-up by the factory and her fierceness to keep fighting for work with dignity, was very moving.

It looks like there were many moments during shooting when the Parsons students were about to be overwhelmed with emotion.

It was an overwhelming experience for everyone on the team to be inside a factory and see women working. We wanted the viewers to connect with the women who make our clothes today and to also be drawn into the students’ journey in a subtle way. Too often the stories of sweatshops are focused on shock and awe. We wanted to tell a different story, showing how the students emotionally connected with the workers in a more human and authentic way. I felt Remake's stories are focused on building long lasting empathy and this seemed like the right way to tell this story.

How has the film been used by Remake?

Remake has toured with the film up and down the country, showing it across U.S. campuses, a few film festivals and sharing the journey online. The film has been a powerful way for millennial consumers and next generation designers to think about the millions of women who make our clothes. We have heard from many early adopters within Remake's movement that the film helped them break up with fast fashion and to instead commit to investing in brands that are pro-women and our planet.

Have clothing corporations responded?

Labor and advocacy groups have applauded the film. Fashion schools such as California College of the Arts and Parsons have been motivated to take a more human centered approach to their sustainability courses since the film screening. Transparent, slow fashion brands have been grateful for Remake's efforts though the larger clothing corporations have been muted in their response, with some questioning how Remake got into factories and talked to workers in the first place.

Can you give us an update on Sreyneang or any of the Parsons students who went to Cambodia?

Sreyneang continues to work at a large factory, picking up overtime hours but has managed to keep her daughter in school. She is focused on ensuring that her daughter has a better, brighter future. All three students’ final design theses were deeply influenced by the Remake journey. Allie is now interested in becoming a journalist that shines a light on the fashion industry; Casey has recently graduated and is hoping to work for a sustainable fashion brand; and Anh attributes embracing her identity partly to this experience. Anh wants to head to Vietnam next, to get to know what conditions are like in the country where her parents were born.

What are you working on now?

I recently finished a film, “Armed with Faith,” about a group of bomb technicians working in the North West of my home country of Pakistan. The film was broadcasted on PBS earlier this year and is playing at festivals. And Remake is currently touring with "Made in Sri Lanka" that gets into the subtle nuances of garment workers not making a living wage and being up against sexual harassment, given that this is an industry that is powered by women but controlled by men. We hope for people who watch the next short, to ask the question, “Where is the #metoo movement for garment workers?”

Take a trip to Southeast Asia and into the hearts and minds of the people who make our clothes.  Watch "Made in Cambodia" on Salon Premium, our new ad-free, content-rich app.

Reading this in the app already? Go back to the main menu and select "SalonTV" to find Salon Films and Salon original shows.

Shooting survivor David Hogg: Paul Ryan, make background checks your legacy

AP/Rich Schultz

David Hogg, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting survivor and gun control activist, is rallying people on Twitter to contact Speaker of the House Paul Ryan and demand the House vote on universal background checks.

Tweet your messege to @SpeakerRyan with #MyMessaegeToSpeakerRyan so our public servants can #AllowTheVote on expansive universal background checks. pic.twitter.com/8DL8TNxKvZ

— David Hogg (@davidhogg111) April 11, 2018

“Tweet your message to Speaker [Paul Ryan] … so our public servants can allow the vote on expansive universal background checks,” Hogg implored on Twitter. In a video attached to the tweet, Hogg addressed Speaker Ryan directly: “I would really love if you actually allowed a vote on the House floor for universal background checks,” Hogg said. “Over 90 percent of Americans support them, and it can help save some lives. Don’t even bother responding to this, just do it,” he added.

Ryan, the leader of the Republican Party in the lower house of Congress, announced on Wednesday that he would be stepping down from his congressional seat come January. Ryan is yet to respond to Hogg, and the additional messages he has received as of Wednesday evening. Indeed, upon hearing of the Speaker's departure, Hogg jumped on the opportunity to move Ryan to bring a vote.

https://twitter.com/davidhogg111/stat...

Hogg’s claim that 90 percent of American support universal background checks checks out, according to Politifact. Indeed, even 74 percent of NRA members support “requiring background checks for all gun sales,” as Politifact noted.

Leaping on the hashtag Hogg initiated, “#MyMessageToSpeakerRyan,” many activists responded in kind, including Anderson Pleasants, a fellow high school student and activist from Buffalo, New York.

#MyMessageToSpeakerRyan I may have been born nonverbal, but I, along with a majority of America, still have a voice demanding our leaders #Allowthevote on universal background checks and sensible gun reform. The time is now. Stand up. Listen to the people. .@SpeakerRyan pic.twitter.com/h0gWjbj328

— Anderson “Andy” Pleasants (@pleasantandy) April 11, 2018

“Hello, my name is Anderson Pleasants, I’m an 18 year old high school student with a message for Speaker Paul Ryan,” Pleasants spoke and signed. “I may not have an actual voice that’s easy to understand, but I do have a voice… I have a voice just like the 83% of Americans who support mandatory waiting periods after gun purchases… I have a voice just like the 67% of Americans who support a nationwide ban on assault weapons,” Pleasants implored Ryan.

Others chimed in too.

Ricky Dixon should be alive.

The inaction of our “leaders” has perpetuated violence... we demand change.#NorthwesternWalkout #AllowTheVote https://t.co/h74dksZzPX

— Matt Deitsch (@MattxRed) April 11, 2018

Dear @SpeakerRyan: please #AllowTheVote on expansive universal background checks. #MyMessaegeToSpeakerRyan

— Michael Hitchcock (@hitchmichael) April 12, 2018

. @SpeakerRyan, now I think it’s time you put the American people first. 90% of Americans support a universal background check. How about you #AllowTheVote?

— Sofie Whitney (@sofiewhitney) April 11, 2018

Regarding his impending departure, Ryan tweeted earlier that he is a “Wisconsin guy” who came to Washington to “make a difference.” If Ryan brought a background check bill to vote, it would certainly accomplish that goal.

Republicans waste their time with Mark Zuckerberg obsessing over Diamond & Silk

AP/Andrew Harnik

For the second day in a row, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg faced lawmakers on Capitol Hill, and for the second day in a row, Republicans in Congress used much of their precious time grilling the social media honcho about … Diamond & Silk.  

Lynnette "Diamond" Hardaway and Rochelle "Silk" Richardson have generated more attention from Republican legislators this week than multiple reports of troubling patterns out of Facebook — including allegations that the social media platform has ignored abuses that allow the genocide in Royhinga to continue undeterred. The sisters, who refer to themselves as "President Donald J. Trump's most outspoken & loyal supporters," quickly became Republicans’ number 1 priority during Zuckerberg's two-day Capitol Hill testimony when they alleged last week that they’ve been targeted by Facebook because of their political beliefs.

....Facebook. Thu, Apr 5, 2018 at 3:40 PM: "The Policy team has came to the conclusion that your content and your brand has been determined unsafe to the community." Yep, this was FB conclusion after 6 Months, 29 days, 5 hrs, 40 minutes and 43 seconds. Oh and guess what else...

— Diamond and Silk® (@DiamondandSilk) April 7, 2018

Known for their sassy defenses of Trump — typically posted to Twitter — the vloggers have quickly risen in the crowded right-wing media sphere, thanks in large part to personal shout-outs from the president. Now the North Carolina sisters say they have been corresponding with Facebook since September about “bias censorship and discrimination,” alleging that Facebook was not sending notifications of new content to their nearly 1.4 million followers. Appearing on “Fox & Friends” ahead of Zuckerberg’s trip to Capitol Hill, the duo said their videos were deemed “unsafe to the community” by Facebook’s team.

"We are not unsafe!" the duo said in unison on Fox News.

"This has to be an even playing field. If Mark Zuckerberg can't make this an even playing field, Facebook is going to be the face without the book and the book with no face when we are done with it," Diamond said on Fox News. "If he was concerned about his platform being a place for all ideas, then why would he put algorithms in place to censor some ideas?" she said of Zuckerberg. "And why is he turning Facebook into a political playground for Democrats?"

Host Brian Kilmeade responded by noting that "Fox News viewers are probably their biggest users, so they better watch what they are doing."

Since accusing Facebook of censorship, Diamond and Silk have become the latest conservative martyrs, portrayed by right-wing media as victims of political and racial bias.

"Social Justice for Diamond and Silk!" an article at the conservative PJ Media demanded. The American Thinker, a conservative outlet, labeled Facebook racist for its treatment of Diamond and Silk. "Facebook Censors Black Conservatives," wrote LifeNews.com.

"Popular black conservatives, Diamond and Silk, noticed that their Facebook fans weren't receiving notifications of the new content that they were posting," Fox News host Laura Ingraham said on Tuesday, claiming it was a conspiracy that displays the left's "totalitarian agenda in action."

Their plight has even been championed by the biggest celebrity not named Donald Trump in Trump country: Roseanne Barr.

Diamond and Silk are comedians-stop censoring them!

— Roseanne Barr (@therealroseanne) April 11, 2018

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, whom the North Carolina sisters worried in one of their 2016 YouTube videos would spend money on hookers if he became president, was the first to jump to their defense on Tuesday.

“There are a great many Americans who I think are deeply concerned that Facebook and other tech companies are engaged in a pervasive pattern of bias and political censorship,” he said, making mention of Diamond and Silk during the five scant minutes he was allocated to question Zuckerberg.

Bam! @tedcruz exposes Zuckerberg and FB total hypocrisy for how they slant content and restrict people’s access to views they don’t like. Thanks @tedcruz because many of your colleagues don’t know much about the Interweb!

— Gov. Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) April 10, 2018

Republicans in the House kept up the pressure in defense of the duo during Zuckerberg's testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday. 

Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., called them “Silk and Diamond” but insisted they were the victims of bias against conservatives at Facebook.

“Why is Facebook censoring conservative bloggers such as Diamond and Silk? Facebook called them ‘unsafe’ to the community. That is ludicrous. They hold conservative views. That isn’t unsafe," Republican Joe Barton of Texas, who said he was reading a message from one of his constituents, asked Zuckerberg.

“That is Diamond and Silk, two biological sisters from North Carolina,” Rep. Billy Long, R-MO., explained to Zuckerberg. “I’d like to point out that they’re African American, and their content was deemed by your folks to be ‘unsafe.'” Rep. Long said.

“What is ‘unsafe’ about two black women supporting Donald J Trump?”

Tennessee GOP Rep. Marsha Blackburn also came to Diamond and Silk’s defense on Wednesday, saying they are “not terrorism.”

"Let me tell you something right now," Blackburn said to the Facebook founder. "Diamond and Silk is not terrorism."

For his part, all Zuckerberg, who had reportedly been prepped for weeks for the barrage of potential questions from lawmakers he could face, could offer on Diamond and Silk was a confused apology.

“In that specific case, our team made an enforcement error and we have already gotten in touch with them to reverse it,” Zuckerberg said on Wednesday. 

Congress, experts frightened by Trump’s eagerness to strike Syria

Getty/Spencer Platt/AP/Senior Airman Ian Dudley/Salon

President Donald Trump all but confirmed that the United States will soon strike the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, as he communicated in a threatening Wednesday morning tweet in which he taunted Russia and suggested American missiles were "coming" in Syria.

Trump's tweet came in response to a warning from Russia's ambassador to Lebanon, who said any U.S. missile hurled towards Syria, as well as its source, would be shot down. Trump's impending action in Syria followed a chemical attack last week that killed dozens and was allegedly carried out by the Assad regime.

"Trump’s taunting tweets are ridiculous and dangerous, as well as totally inconsistent with his stated view that it’s dumb to alert the enemy to what you plan to do and when you plan to do it," Laurence Tribe, Carl M. Loeb University Professor and Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School told Salon. "Trump has put the United States in a box. If he acts on his threats, he’ll have given Assad, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, and the [Iranian Supreme Leader] Ayatollah [Ali Khamenei] advance warning and endangered our military.

He added, "If he doesn’t act on his threats, he’ll make America look like a paper tiger and will have undermined our credibility yet again on the world stage. Sad."

Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., blasted Trump's Twitter threats as "dangerous," "outrageous," and said "it's not presidential," in an interview with Salon.

But aside from the "stable genius" idea to ignite wars via Twitter, any action from Trump — just like his strike on a Syrian airfield last April — has drawn serious constitutional concerns as well as concerns about what Trump's broader strategy in Syria actually is, if anything.

"I agree with [Rep.] Jim Himes [D-Conn.] and other members of Congress that the president lacks constitutional authority to attack Syria without congressional authorization," Tribe told Salon. "Commander in Chief power to protect Americans on the ground in Syria would presumably be his justification, but I doubt that will suffice as a constitutional matter. The same was true of last year’s strike."

He added, "Whether a strike on humanitarian grounds now would count as a serious enough abuse of power to add to the list of this president’s impeachable offenses down the road is another, more difficult, question."

The Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), passed near-unanimously by legislators in the days after the 9/11 attacks, "doesn't cover this situation," Tribe explained. This is because the AUMF was only intended to allow the president to use "necessary and appropriate force" against "those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided" the 9/11 attacks, which was the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda.

The AUMF was also used by former President Barack Obama to justify attacks against the Islamic State, which, as The Atlantic's Peter Beinart wrote "was dubious enough, given that the Islamic State didn’t exist in 2001."

"This administration, the Obama administration and the Bush administration used that authorization to justify this state of perpetual war, and that has got to stop," Lee told Salon.

The Oakland Democrat, who has long been outspoken about endless U.S. wars in the Middle East and beyond, told Salon that a "comprehensive plan" is needed, not just a one-off strike, or a "military-first" strategy.

"We do have to be outraged with regard to the use of chemical weapons on innocents in Syria. We need to come together with the international community to make sure that Assad is prosecuted as a war criminal, which is what he is," she explained. "But engaging in military action — especially unilateral military action — does not do anything to address the issue of chemical weapons."

She noted that it also fails to address the broader issues at hand in the Syrian civil war, such as the refugee crisis. Rep. Lee explained she has been working with Republicans and Democrats "to demand that Congress take a vote and debate an authorization as it relates to Syria," but largely to no avail.

"I'm very concerned that these drumbeats of war will engage us deeper in this open-ended civil war in Syria," Lee told Salon.

Action is needed by Congress, "now more than ever," she said, and the public needs to demand action as well. That sentiment rings especially true as infamous neoconservative hawk John Bolton was recently appointed as National Security Adviser, and former CIA Director Mike Pompeo awaits a Senate confirmation hearing to become the next Secretary of Sate.

Still, despite a few notable exceptions, Senate Republicans have largely expressed support for Trump to strike Assad. Notable dissenters included Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., while Sen. Mike Lee, R.-Utah, was skeptical of Trump's ability to strike Syria without congressional approval.

Promising war by tweet, insults not only the Constitution but every soldier who puts their life on the line.

— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) April 11, 2018

The use of chemical weapons absolutely requires a response from the United States. But if that response is going to include military force, the President of the United States should come to Congress and ask for authorization before military force is used.

— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) April 9, 2018

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, blasted the notion that Trump could bypass Congress, once again, and strike Syria. "If [Trump] strikes Syria without our approval, what will stop him from bombing North Korea or Iran?" he told The Daily Beast on Tuesday.

The widespread concern for Trump's plans for Syria seems particularly pertinent given that last week Trump split with senior military officials and expressed he wanted to completely withdraw U.S. military forces from Syria. Indeed, Trump's motivations for military intervention are unclear; the president is uninterested in humanitarian concerns, as evidenced by comments he's made along with civilian deaths from missile strikes during his first year in office.

"This is a situation I think we've seen before, where the president wants to be seen as strong," Dan Byman, a senior fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institute told Salon. "But it doesn't seem linked to any kind of broader understanding or attempt to shape events on the ground in a way that's going to have lasting impact."

He added, "We've done such a strike before, and whether it's attacking an airbase or [a] limited military strike I don't think is going to decisively change Assad's calculus on this."

Byman pointed out that theres also the question of a potential serious confrontation and escalation with Russia, "and to my knowledge, Trump hasn't thought through the implications of that."

Byman continued, "So I'm worried that we're rushing ahead and — especially sending a live message with rhetoric — that we're not necessarily going to back up in the long term policy."

It's worth noting, however, that even if Trump went to Congress prior to taking action, it's not clear if lawmakers would ultimately even vote against giving the president the authority he would be seeking. Which means that there is little hope the U.S. won't find itself barreling towards another potential military intervention in the Middle East with a president that doesn't have a clear strategy.

But it's not exactly synonymous with the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. In fact, the consequences could prove to be more dire considering that numerous powerful countries are involved in the Syrian civil war, which has effectively made it a much larger and more complex proxy war.

"We need the public to say to members of Congress 'step up and do your job,'" Congresswoman Lee told Salon. "There are no checks and balances in place, our system of checks and balances has eroded."

 

What cable news viewership reveals about the 2018 midterm elections

Getty/Chip Somodevilla/AP/Steven Senne

Embattled conservative cable personality Laura Ingraham returned to Fox News Monday night with significantly less  advertisers after mocking 17-year-old Parkland shooting survivor David Hogg for being rejected by his preferred colleges last month. And her return to the spotlight was overshadowed by the decision of two more brands who decided to join the choir in yanking their ads from "The Ingraham Angle" as they fielded uncomfortable questions from consumers in the wake of the broadcast.

On the other side of the political spectrum, while both Fox News and CNN lost viewers between 2017 and 2018, the audience for liberal haven MSNBC has skyrocketed by 30 percent. And with midterm elections quickly approaching, Democratic strategists feel encouraged about this changing tide in cable news – and the implications it has about the future of American politics.

"While Fox News held its standing as cable TV’s No. 1 network both for total day and prime time, MSNBC finished second in both categories, enthusing Democrats who see the rise of the network — powered by the liberal commentary of star host Rachel Maddow — not just as a reflection of energy within their base, but as a tool to help candidates in the coming elections," Politico reported.

Politico offered a compelling parallel. Fox News scored its largest average audiences since its launch in the first quarter of 2010, as the Barack Obama administration approached its first midterm election cycle. That fall, Republicans gained a whopping 63 seats in the House. Given the partisan divide in cable news today, it is not far-fetched to imagine there is a strong link between viewership and voter sentiment.

While "The Ingraham Angle" remains one of the five most-watched programs in cable news, Nielson data indicates that viewership has done little to shield Ingraham from fleeing advertisers. Hogg called on advertisers to boycott Ingraham's show after her distasteful remark — and CBS reports that at least 19 advertisers, or about 50 percent of her total on-air sponsors, have now pulled their advertisements on account of her comments. (This number excludes Blue Apron and SlimFast, the two companies that yanked ads on Tuesday.)

We were unaware that our ad would be running on The Laura Ingraham Angle last night. We will no longer be advertising on the show, and will be working with our media buying partners to more closely monitor where our ads appear going forward.

— Blue Apron (@blueapron) April 10, 2018

We have stopped advertising on the Laura Ingraham show and have no plans to resume in the near future. We are also monitoring all ad placements carefully.

— SlimFast (@SlimFast) April 10, 2018

Ingraham's apology came just a day after her dig against Hogg, but it proved largely ineffective in retaining advertisers. Although, it is worth noting that Ingraham has a long history of voicing harmful and offensive opinions, among them that Mexican immigrants enter the U.S. "to murder and rape our people"; undocumented people who attempt to cross the border after deportation should be shot; and black athletes should "shut up and dribble." The Fox News host has also likened same-sex marriage to incest and polygamy. Yet, apparently, these tirades were not incendiary enough for advertisers to walk away.

Ingraham's language, which mirrors much of the rhetoric used by President Donald Trump, points to contemporary right-wing politics anchored more by feelings of resentment and attacks on minorities – including people of color, immigrants, the LGBTQ community, Muslims and the poor – rather than arguments rooted in fact. And given how inextricably linked Fox News and Trump have become, with the network a significant mouth piece for the president and its hosts fervently parading pro-Trump messaging, a decline in viewership for Fox News could be inferred as a direct correlation to disproval for the president.

Trump's approval ratings may also reflect people's opinions of Fox News. The network's number, from the first quarter of 2017 to the first quarter of 2018, are down 16 percent, according to Nielson. Trump's approval rating continues to hover around 40 percent.

"These numbers show that Republican campaigns can't count on Fox News to reach their voters as much as they could have a year ago," Democratic strategist Pete Giangreco told Politico. "They are going to have to use data to find out where those viewers have gone in order to continue to reach them in 2018."

Fox still pulls in 1.4 million total average viewers, but MSNBC now follows closer behind at the one million mark. "I think there are a lot of people out there who are dramatically troubled by the direction of the country, and they would like to be reminded that a) they’re not alone, and, b) there is an alternative," Stuart Stevens, the Republican strategist at the fore of Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign and a Trump critic, told Politico. "I basically consider MSNBC the 'it doesn’t have to be this way' channel."

The reality that the two, top-rated cable news networks espouse views on opposite ends of the political spectrum, compounded with CNN's 13 percent drop in viewers, indicates a notable shift in modern news and politics. As much as people want to agonize over political division, there is becoming little interest in the balance of old that continues to be championed by CNN.

With Paul Ryan leaving, will it be Randy Bryce — or Paul Nehlen?

AP/Colin Young-wolff/Scott Bauer

Now that Speaker of the House Paul Ryan has announced he isn't going to run for reelection in 2018, Wisconsin's 1st Congressional District is now in play — and could go Democratic in November.

"We have a map of the districts that we consider swingable. There are 71 districts on our map, and we actually added Paul Ryan's district a couple months ago," Ethan Todras-Whitehill, co-founder of Swing Left, an organization that helps activists find the nearest congressional district that could be picked up by Democrats, told Salon.

"We actually added this district to the map before Ryan retired," Todras-Whitehill said. "Now at the time we were upfront with people that, as things go, Wisconsin 1 was at that point a pretty big reach. You know, the sort of district that you would only win in a big wave. However, our argument for adding the district was that if we can force Paul Ryan to play defense on his home turf, that's more time that he's going to have to spend campaigning in his district and fundraising for himself, and less time that he can spend helping out other vulnerable Republicans."

But Ryan's decision to retire has changed their equation — and if you're hoping for Democrats to win Ryan's district, this change has been a good thing.

"With his retirement, it actually becomes a legitimate, bona fide swing district, not just a district we have on the map to force Ryan to play defense," Todras-Whitehill said.

Todras-Whitehill's analysis seems to be backed up by political science expert Larry Sabato — director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia — who gave Salon his own take on the state of the race for Ryan's seat:

What to do with WI-1 in our ratings, now that it is open, is somewhat vexing. The seat definitely is to the right of center. While Barack Obama carried it narrowly in 2008, it flipped to the Mitt-Romney/Paul Ryan GOP ticket in 2012 by four points. Donald Trump won it by 10 points. Ryan has easily won the seat in every election since his initial victory in 1998, when he defended the seat for Republicans after former Rep. Mark Neumann (R) left to pursue the first of several unsuccessful bids for statewide office. Neumann first won the seat in 1994, defeating then-Rep. Peter Barca (D), who had beaten Neumann narrowly in a 1993 special election. The special was necessitated by long-serving Rep. Les Aspin’s (D) ascension to secretary of defense after Bill Clinton’s election in 1992 (Aspin’s time at Defense was short and unhappy, and he only served for about a year and then died in 1995).

The reason to bring up the history is just to note that the district does have some Democratic lineage, although it is also the kind of area — significantly whiter than the national average, and with a slightly below-average level of four-year college attainment — that has been trending away from Democrats prior to the emergence of Donald Trump. The district’s Republicanism was on display in last week’s state Supreme Court race, when conservative Michael Screnock carried the district by about five points despite losing statewide by about 11 points, according to DecisionDeskHQ’s J. Miles Coleman. Republicans believe the district favors them even as an open seat, pointing to internal polling showing a generic Republican leading there by about a dozen points.

The district’s recent Republicanism forms the argument for making the district Leans Republican. However, it’s hard to give Republicans much of a benefit of the doubt in most places given the president’s weak approval rating, the normal tendency for the president’s party to lose ground in the House in midterms, and the extra level of exposure the president’s party has in defending open seats. So we’re going to start the WI-1 open seat race as a Toss-up, while also acknowledging the uphill climb Democrats ultimately may have there.

Melanie Conklin, communications director for the Wisconsin Democratic Party, was pretty excited.

"The Republican brand under Donald Trump is toxic and Paul Ryan appears to be leaving it, quitting," Conklin told Salon. "And what's interesting from our point of view is that rather than walk away from the divisions and the hatred that has become the Republican brand, as Paul Ryan is doing, Scott Walker appears to be doubling down." She said that Ryan and Walker represented divergent approaches that Republican politicians in Wisconsin, and throughout America, have been taking in dealing with the controversies of the Trump era — "either decide to walk away from that division and anger or change and be more reflective of Wisconsin values."

There's a big risk for Democrats, however, and that's that the district may stay Republican, but become more extreme — such as Ryan's top primary opponent Paul Nehlen, who is best known for getting banned by Twitter for posting a racist tweet about Meghan Markle and who has also made anti-Semitic comments.

"The more extreme candidate is, they're less likely to win but there's a bigger risk if they do," Todras-Whitehill told Salon, mentioning Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin as an example of one Republican whose extremism made him an excellent choice to win an otherwise potentially competitive race. "Sen. Claire McCaskill actually ran campaigns calling Todd Akin 'too conservative' and what she was trying to do was basically boost Akin's chances of winning, because he was the most extreme candidate, so he'd be the worst person to get into office. On the other hand, she saw him as her best possible opponent to run against."

Todras-Whitehill added, "If you view it from the perspective of the country as a whole, obviously you don't want a guy like Paul Nehlen getting into office. If you view it from the perspective of the chances of Democrats flipping a district, then the more extreme and the more far right of a candidate, the better chance Democrats have of flipping that district."

One of the two Democrats seeking to run against Ryan, Randy Bryce, made it clear that he doesn't think mainstream Republicans will actually allow someone he called "a Nazi" like Nehlen to be their standard bearer in such an important district.

"I don't see that happening," Bryce told Salon. "I think it's interesting that there's a Nazi that's in the race. But the Republican Party in the state, they didn't allow him to attend one of their annual events. I don't think he's gonna be the Republican person that's going to be on the ballot in November."

Bryce also didn't seem surprised that Ryan had opted not to seek another term.

"I've never accused Paul Ryan of being a stupid man," Bryce told Salon. "I don't think that him quitting is gonna effect other things as far as being a leader. It's more along the lines of him seeing what's been taking place throughout the country, and including Wisconsin too with the special election results as well as the election we just had the other Tuesday with the Supreme Court race. It's been going on throughout the entire country."

He added, "I mean him getting out is definitely helpful as far as the picture of rats leaving a sinking ship."

 

Study: No relation between immigration and crime

AP Photo/Don Ryan

On Wednesday, the morning after his administration announced its plan to send the National Guard to patrol the United States’ southern border, President Trump tweeted "strong action today” on immigration:

Our Border Laws are very weak while those of Mexico & Canada are very strong. Congress must change these Obama era, and other, laws NOW! The Democrats stand in our way - they want people to pour into our country unchecked....CRIME! We will be taking strong action today.

His argument against immigration (i.e., “CRIME!”) is as nuanced as it is factual — which is to say, not at all.

The Marshall Project, in conjunction with the New York Times Upshot, analyzed the data from a 2016 study of the relationship between crime rates and immigration in 200 U.S. cities and found that “a large majority of the areas have many more immigrants today than they did in 1980 and fewer violent crimes.”

“In 136 metro areas, almost 70 percent of those studied, the immigrant population increased between 1980 and 2016 while crime stayed stable or fell,” the Marshall Project write-up said. “The number of areas where crime and immigration both increased was much lower — 54 areas, slightly more than a quarter of the total. The 10 places with the largest increases in immigrants all had lower levels of crime in 2016 than in 1980.”

Trump engaged in a public war of words last month with Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf after she warned her constituents of impending ICE raids. He called Schaaf a “disgrace” and claimed “85 percent” of the “close to 1,000 people ready to be gotten” were criminals. Data from the study, however, show Oakland was among the cities in which immigration has increased, and crime decreased, since 1980.