Aug. 22, 2023 ❧ Forever chemicals, The Internet Archive, Ukraine's casualties, and Ecuadoran elections...
...plus California's dueling referendums, Georgia's political censorship, Joe Manchin's dirty money, and capybaras' supersonic speed
Exciting things are happening at Current Affairs: We’re about to move to a new, larger office space to accommodate more staff. For six years, CA has operated out of an adorable but tiny two-room space in the back of a law office in New Orleans. Many of our subscribers have stopped in and visited the existing Current Affairs World Headquarters, and we’re going to miss it a lot. But we’re excited to be expanding and moving into part of a bright, airy 19th century warehouse a few blocks away.
Still, we need your help! We’d like to buy some nice furniture for our new space. Can you help us? Here’s our promise: if you donate money to help us equip the space, we will name a piece of office equipment after you. That’s right, CAHQ might forever be home to the [Your Name] Area Rug or the [Your Name] Industrial Shelving Unit. We can’t afford to put a plaque on it, but we’ll know, and you’ll know, and a poster with every named object will be displayed prominently in our headquarters. Ever wanted to achieve immortality on the cheap? This is a great way to do it! (We can also name a furniture item after one of your loved ones, if you would like to use it as a way to show you care.) Remember: Current Affairs is a nonprofit funded entirely by its readers!
And now, onto the news. Remember: If you have story suggestions, queries, or complaints, email briefing@currentaffairs.org.
STORIES THAT SHOULD BE BIGGER
EPA WILL RELAX PFAS REGULATION, AND INCREASE THE NUMBER OF “FOREVER CHEMICALS”
The Environmental Protection Agency has adjusted its approach to PFAS, or per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances. More commonly known as “forever chemicals,” PFAS are unusual because they do not naturally decompose, and can linger in both drinking water and the human body for years after initial exposure. They have also been linked to cancer. In 2021, the EPA had issued a relatively straightforward guidance based on the compounds’ molecular structure, defining chemicals with “at least two adjacent carbon atoms, where one carbon is fully fluorinated and the other is at least partially fluorinated” as PFAS subject to regulation. Now, though, the agency says it has opted for a “case-by-case” model that will allow it to be “more flexible” in deciding what to regulate. As Guardian journalist Tom Perkins writes, the shift has created uncertainty, and opened loopholes for potentially dangerous chemicals to slip through:
Current and former EPA employees say the agency is not defining some fluorinated chemicals used in pesticides as PFAS at a time when research has discovered their widespread use in agricultural products. The agency also excludes some “ultra short chain” PFAS refrigerants, which are defined as PFAS by the European Union but not the toxics office, said Tim Whitehouse, a former EPA attorney now with the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility nonprofit.
While the reason for the change in policy is unclear, Perkins notes that the chemical giant Chemours, formerly part of DuPont, “opposes defining the refrigerants as PFAS ‘because it is going to destroy their market’ as it has in Europe,” which has much stricter regulations. Chemours is currently the subject of intense controversy in North Carolina, where residents of the Cape Fear river basin have accused the manufacturer of human rights violations after PFAS from its Fayetteville plant contaminated the local water supply. Going forward, companies like it will only benefit from the newly-relaxed regulatory system.
AFTER COURT ORDER, INTERNET ARCHIVE WILL START REMOVING COPYRIGHTED BOOKS
The Internet Archive, a free, nonprofit e-book library that contains nearly 39 million texts, lost a lawsuit earlier this year brought by four publishing companies claiming that their lending practices constituted copyright infringement. This week, the Archive announced that as a result of the ruling, “the Publisher Plaintiffs will notify us of their commercially available books, and the Internet Archive will expeditiously remove them from lending,” if those publishers have an ebook version available. And as part of a separate agreement with the Association of American Publishers, the trade group which helped to bring the lawsuit, they will also have to honor takedown requests from any of their member publishing houses—which includes most major publishing houses in the U.S., and potentially puts millions of books in jeopardy. While the Archive will still be able to host public domain works and texts for the visually impaired, this is still a tremendous loss for the availability of public knowledge.
Earlier this year in Current Affairs, Stephen Prager described the social value of the Archive, which provided an alternative to the current predatory system by which public libraries are forced to pay several times over to lend out a copy of a single e-book, a state of affairs that has eroded the number of titles they are able to carry. The Archive allowed libraries to scan or lend print copies of their books to be made available to anyone in the world who was interested completely for free, which made vastly more valuable information available for quick consumption. As Prager wrote, without the Archive,
The landscape of information available for free online will be severely degraded… If we want to have a culture where reading is valued, then books will need to compete for our attention with other media. IA is the only service that makes books as easy to view as a tweet, a YouTube video, or a Fox News article.
[CORRECTION: The initial version of this briefing incorrectly stated that 3.6 million books were in jeopardy of being removed as a result of this injunction—this is the total number of copyrighted books contained within the Archive. The injunction actually states that only books by the publishers who brought the suit (Hachette, Penguin Random House, John Wiley & Sons, and HarperCollins) which have commercially available e-book versions will be eligible for removal. The IA will also have to remove books from any publishing house within the Association of American Publishers (most major ones are members). So, while, this does not include every copyrighted book in the Archive, it still puts a great many of them in jeopardy. Nevertheless, we apologize for the error!]
BIG STORY
UKRAINE WAR TROOP CASUALTIES APPROACHING 500,000 AFTER JUST 18 MONTHS
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has now been going on for 18 months and is nearing a grim new milestone. According to U.S. officials, the number of total troops killed or wounded on both sides is approaching 500,000 (note: this number is an imperfect estimate as both sides are coy about releasing actual figures). Russia’s casualty numbers are quite a bit higher than Ukraine’s with nearly 300,000 casualties to Ukraine’s roughly 170,000 to 190,000. According to The New York Times, U.S. officials are reportedly concerned that, amid a glacial Ukrainian counteroffensive,
Ukraine’s adjustments will race through precious ammunition supplies, which could benefit President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and disadvantage Ukraine in a war of attrition. But Ukrainian commanders decided the pivot reduced casualties and preserved their frontline fighting force… American officials say they fear that Ukraine has become casualty averse, one reason it has been cautious about pressing ahead with the counteroffensive. Almost any big push against dug-in Russian defenders protected by minefields would result in huge numbers of losses.
It’s hard not to understand why they’d feel “casualty averse” (We’d hope anyone would be “casualty averse” rather than “casualty eager”) especially given that in just a year and a half, the number of dead Ukrainian troops has already surpassed the total number of American lives lost in Vietnam over ten years.
The real question here is: what could possibly end this senseless slaughter? Ukraine has little incentive to come to the negotiating table as long as the Biden administration continues unconditional aid to their cause and gives them hope of strengthening their hand. A deal at this point would likely require them to cede eastern areas including Crimea and the Donbas to Russia, as one NATO member recently suggested. But Ukraine views this as a non-starter. Putin, meanwhile, appears to be in too deep to pull back. As Domitilla Sagramoso writes in The Financial Times,
This is because what began as a war of choice, under the pretext that Ukraine belonged to the “Russian world”, has now become an existential fight not only for Putin but also for Russia itself. The Kremlin used Nato’s enlargement eastward to justify its invasion, even though there were no concrete plans to grant Ukraine Nato membership; this has backfired. For Russia, Ukraine’s western-armed military forces now represent a real threat. Ukrainian forces have shown their effectiveness on the battlefield, despite the difficulties, and Moscow is clearly concerned that they may advance deeper into Russian occupied territory, and potentially dislodge its forces from Crimea… A negotiated outcome… remains elusive. As the belligerents test their strength on the battlefield, their positions remain far apart. This could change, however, if neither side gains the military advantage and a cold winter stalemate sets in.
AROUND THE STATES
As its water temperatures unprecedentedly exceed 100 F, Florida’s coral reefs are at severe risk of “bleaching” — or turning white due to a loss of algae. For the first time, The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has put Southeast Florida’s coral at the highest possible alert level—“significant mortality likely” as a result of severe, prolonged heat. Coral bleaching is hugely destructive to reef ecosystems. According to the World Wildlife Federation,
Coral reefs support some of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet. Thousands of marine animals depend on coral reefs for survival, including some species of sea turtles, fish, crabs, shrimp, jellyfish, sea birds, starfish, and more… Coral bleaching impacts peoples’ livelihoods, food security, and safety. Coral reefs are natural barriers that absorb the force of waves and storm surges, keeping coastal communities safe. Without them, we must rely on manmade seawalls that are expensive, less effective, and environmentally damaging to construct.
Around 70 percent of coral reefs in Florida have lost material as a result of pollution and rising temperatures. And the phenomenon is hardly isolated: 75 percent of the globe’s reefs experienced heat stress severe enough to trigger bleaching, and 30 percent of reefs had coral die as a result. The destruction of coral reefs is one of the numerous ways climate change is wrecking global biodiversity. Time is running out to prevent the effects of climate change from becoming irreversible, but our politicians continue to putter around as if nothing is wrong or actively make the problem worse—the only solution is mass climate action.
California is in the midst of a battle over taxation, and both sides are using ballot measures to push their priorities during the 2024 election cycle. It began when a pro-business coalition in the state legislature qualified an amendment that would require any state tax to be approved by voters and receive two-thirds support in each house of the legislature—a measure that would make it extraordinarily difficult for the legislature to pass new taxes. This is expected to dramatically reduce public funding for public safety, education, and aid for the homeless (just to name a few things). In order to undercut the Republican proposal, the Democrats proposed their own referendum on referendums. Under their proposal, any state referendum that changes the percentage of votes needed to pass a referendum would itself need to pass with a two-thirds majority vote from the public. Got all that? Essentially, the idea is that in order to change the requirement for passing new taxes to a two-thirds vote, they should have to get a two-thirds majority to approve that change.
These are just a few of the many 2024 ballot measures which could have massive impacts on public services, wages, and labor rights in California and they have been proposed by both corporate and labor-backed groups. Business groups qualified initiatives that would…
Repeal a law that appointed a 10-member Fast Food Council to regulate wages and working conditions
Repeal a law allowing employees to file lawsuits against employers who violate state laws governing wages and working conditions
Repeal a law requiring a 3,200-foot buffer between new oil wells and homes, schools, nursing homes, and hospitals
Other measures have been backed by labor, including ones that would…
Increase California’s minimum wage from $15.50 an hour to $18.
Increase the marginal tax rate on incomes above $5 million to fund pandemic preparedness (Fascinatingly, much of the funding to qualify this measure came from the obscenely rich cryptocurrency fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried.)
A Georgia teacher has been fired for reading a book about nonbinary gender identity to her students. Katie Rinderle had been teaching at Due West Elementary School for ten years. This March, she read a picture book called “My Shadow is Purple”—a story about a child who’s neither “pink” nor “blue”—to her class. After “some parents” (it’s unclear how many) took offense, the Cobb County school board voted 4-3 to fire Rinderle on Thursday, citing a 2022 law that bans Georgia teachers from discussing “divisive concepts” or “personal political beliefs” in the classroom. The existence of nonbinary people is, apparently, considered a “political belief,” and Rinderle is the first teacher to lose her job under the controversial law. She has released a statement through the Southern Poverty Law Center:
The district is sending a harmful message that not all students are worthy of affirmation in being their unapologetic and authentic selves. This decision, based on intentionally vague policies, will result in more teachers self-censoring in fear of not knowing where the invisible line will be drawn. Censorship perpetuates harm and students deserve better.
LONG READ: The faces of Portland's housing crisis. In The Nation, photographer Jordan Gale has published a gallery of portraits of the people most affected by Portland’s ongoing cost-of-living and homelessness crises. As rents and home prices have increased, so has the number of people unable to afford shelter; according to the Nation, the state of Oregon currently needs 140,000 additional units to house everyone, a number which may expand to 440,000 in the next 20 years. In Portland, the suffering is particularly acute, as senior citizens’ apartment complexes are at risk of having their contracts expire, and suddenly increasing in price to match market rates. Elsewhere, low-income housing developments like La Hacienda Apartment Complex are demolished entirely. Gale’s work bears witness, refusing to allow individual lives to “get lost in the blizzard of statistics.” Incorporating handwritten messages from both the homeless, and those at risk of losing their homes, the project is often emotionally devastating.
“I have no family, no kids, I already sold my car to pay the bills. God will have to find a way to keep me here, but if I lose this apartment, he’ll have to take me home.”
AROUND THE WORLD
Wildfires are raging across western Canada, with no end in sight. According to reporting in the Guardian, there were at least 236 fires actively burning in the Northwest Territories on Sunday, some of them just 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) from the province’s capital of Yellowknife. Almost all of Yellowknife’s 20,000 residents have been evacuated, leaving the city a “virtual ghost town.” Meanwhile, a further 380 fires are ongoing in British Columbia, with 150 of them “out of control.” Smoke from the fires can be seen from space. On Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dispatched military assistance to British Columbia, where 35,000 people have been evacuated from their homes; already, at least 50 buildings have been “fully or partially destroyed” in the city of West Kelowna. Speaking to the CBC, professor Mike Flannigan, who specializes in wildfire science at Thompson Rivers University, emphasized that climate change played a key role in causing the crisis:
It's really all about the weather. That's the reason why we've got this incredible fire season [...] Our forest management practices, they've been like this since about the '80s. So why is it we're seeing the bad fire seasons now? It's because the weather has gotten more extreme.
The Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre has posted an interactive map where users can track the fires’ progress in real time:
The West African ECOWAS bloc could be on the verge of invading Niger in an effort to restore its old government following a military coup in late July. The junta ruling According to Al Jazeera, the bloc has agreed to “activate a standby force as a last resort if diplomatic efforts fail.” So far, they have not been fruitful. Niger floated the prospect of holding elections within three years, which ECOWAS promptly rejected. Meanwhile, ECOWAS has made preparations for a specific “D-Day,” but has not publicized when this would begin. However, according to Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford, an actual invasion would still face…
“many political and legal hurdles before it could ever be implemented. These include approval by parliaments and legislative bodies of participating West African states, a number of which, including regional powerhouse Nigeria, have already said no to any potential military action yet.”
Many ECOWAS members are extremely wary of becoming entrenched in a war. In The Conversation, Olayinka Ajala, an international relations scholar at Leeds Beckett University, says that a war would likely divert resources currently being dedicated to the war on terror being waged inside the country, could create a massive refugee crisis, and would heighten tensions between Niger and its former colonizer France.
Amid rising gang violence (which culminated in the assassination of a presidential candidate last week) and economic chaos, Ecuador held national elections on Sunday. It appears that the presidential election will head to a runoff election in October. Leftist Luisa González—who has promised to revive many of the social programs established by her socialist predecessor Rafael Correa between 2007 and 2017—received the largest percentage of the vote, at 33 percent. González argues that widening inequality and poverty under the recent conservative administration have been the primary cause of the nation’s descent into violence, saying “We will once again move the country forward and provide healthcare, medicine, education, scholarships, and security.” Her runoff opponent will be Daniel Noboa—the son of banana magnate and five-time presidential candidate Álvaro Noboa who is possibly the richest man in Ecuador. His company has been the subject of numerous tax and child labor violations as well as lawsuits for sexual harassment.
LONG READ: After the U.S. finally ended its 20-year occupation of Afghanistan, nearly 3.6 million Afghans left the country from 2021 to 2022 as the Taliban reasserted power. Many Afghan refugees are still stuck in legal limbo as they seek safety in Western countries. In Al Jazeera, Ruchi Kumar interviewed people still struggling to find refuge:
It has been roughly a year and a half since Saber Assadi fled Afghanistan for Iran with his wife, but he has been scrambling for months to leave again. This time, he wants to go to Brazil on a special humanitarian visa, something he discovered on YouTube. But for now, he is stuck. The 30-year-old, a Shia Muslim, is originally from the eastern province of Parwan and belongs to the Hazara ethnic group, which has increasingly been attacked by armed groups… He left Afghanistan about six months after the Taliban takeover. Its economy had been run into the ground due to its international isolation and offered few economic opportunities for educated Afghans, such as Assadi, who tried his hand at several jobs, from running a travel agency to exporting goods such as saffron to Pakistan and importing clothing from there. Besides the economic hardships, Assadi also faced threats for being Hazara, and he feared the Taliban might target him for having worked with foreign companies. He travelled to Iran after failing to secure a spot among Afghan refugees transported to Qatar in the aftermath of the Taliban takeover. He may no longer be physically at risk in Iran, but he and his family have been presented with a new set of challenges that overshadow any future prospects. “I see no hope for a future in Iran,” Assadi said. “I’ve had friends and acquaintances move to Brazil. I’m told you can get a passport after a few years, but I feel like here [in Iran], you could stay for 50 years and not get it.” Like many other Afghans, Assadi has also found himself struggling to make ends meet as Iran’s economy – targeted by harsh US sanctions – has been struggling with runaway inflation, squeezing most Iranians… According to government estimates, five million to six million Afghan refugees live in Iran…
CROOKS vs. SICKOS (or, “What are our politicians up to?”)
Fox executives are funding Senator Joe Manchin, who may run as a third-party presidential candidate in 2024. The conservative West Virginia Democrat, who has been arguably the biggest thorn in the side of any even slightly progressive policy agenda pursued by Democrats in Congress, received tens of thousands of dollars from Fox executives between April and June according to FEC filings reported by The Intercept, He also received donations from the son of NewsCorp chairman Rupert Murdoch back in 2018. Manchin has appeared on Fox numerous times to serve as a Democrat who just happens to agree with Republicans on issues like taxation, the deficit, and climate policy. Naturally, his political organization, No Labels has received lots of cash from fossil fuel companies as he has sought to tank clean energy investments.
LONG READ: Why is Kanye West's former publicist—Trevian Kutti—wrapped up in the Trump indictment? In Slate, Molly Olmstead writes:
Kutti’s role in the indictment relates to the harassment of Fulton County election worker Ruby Freeman, whom some might remember as “Lady Ruby,” and whose testimony was played at the televised Jan. 6 committee hearings last year. (“There is nowhere I feel safe. Nowhere,” she testified. “Do you know how it feels to have the president of the United States target you?”) Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, were both election workers who were featured in edited viral videos that appeared, from the perspective of conspiracy theorists, to show them pulling from a suitcase of fake ballots. (The “suitcase” was standard ballot boxes; a secretive “USB drive” they were accused of suspiciously passing between them was a ginger mint.)... In the weeks after the 2020 election, according to the Georgia indictment, Kutti traveled from Chicago to Atlanta in hopes of convincing Freeman to admit that she committed election fraud. Kutti appeared at Freeman’s house, told Freeman’s neighbor she was a “crisis manager” and was there to help, and called Freeman to warn her that she was in danger. According to Reuters, Kutti told Freeman that a “high-profile individual” had sent her and that if Freeman did not confess to voter fraud, in 48 hours “people” would come to her home, and Freeman would go to jail. If the allegations prove true, they amount to cruel and illegal scare tactics.
Ron DeSantis wants to use “deadly force” against people trying to cross the US-Mexico border. At an event held by conservative radio host Eric Erickson, the Florida governor said the following:
We are going to authorize the use of deadly force against the cartels. If you have somebody coming in with the fentanyl in the backpack—they even break through the border wall, where there is wall—if they’re doing that, that’s the last thing they’re going to be able to do, because we’re going to leave them stone cold dead at the border. We’re not putting up with it any more.
However, it’s unclear how border patrols would tell whether a particular person trying to enter the U.S. was involved with “the cartels,” or whether they were carrying drugs. In practice, DeSantis’s idea could allow government agents to use “deadly force” against immigrants they merely suspected of drug smuggling, and lead to a dramatic increase in the number of innocent people left “stone cold dead.” (Just for the record, the conservative Cato Institute found that only 0.02% of the people apprehended at the border for illegal crossing possessed fentanyl—the vast majority of it comes through legal ports of entry.) Just like the spinning blades attached to buoys in the Rio Grande or the razor-wire booby traps that have led several migrants—including pregnant women and children—to be horribly injured, DeSantis’ proposal to apparently indiscriminately shoot border-crossers dead is just another symbol of the needless inhumanity we are willing to subject people to.
CAPYBARA FACT OF THE DAY
Take a look at this capybara.
Does he look like the type of creature who moves with lightning speed? “No,” you say! “This oversized rodent surely lumbers awkwardly and lacks any semblance of the grace and dexterity that would characterize, for instance, a noble stallion.”
Well, you’re wrong! At top speeds of 35 km/hr (nearly 22 mph), capybaras can run just as fast as horses!
But there’s another area where the world’s largest rodents have horses beat — they can also run underwater, and are capable of swimming at 20 mph (horses, by comparison, are capable of swimming at zero miles per hour). Capybaras, meanwhile, surpass even the fearsome saltwater crocodile.
Next time you’re running late, leave the horses behind and mount the nearest capybara.
Writing and research by Stephen Prager and Alex Skopic. Editing and additional material by Nathan J. Robinson and Lily Sánchez. Fact-checking by Justin Ward. This news briefing is a product of Current Affairs Magazine. Subscribe to our gorgeous and informative print edition here, and our delightful podcast here. Current Affairs is 100% reader supported and depends on your subscriptions and donations.