Student debt forgiveness overturned and other Supreme Court updates, the hellscape of U.S. prisons, Trump's idea to deport American citizens, a comically huge cruise ship, and much more...
Once again, there is an awful lot of news to cover, and so we want to get straight to the heart of things. But before we do, we must note that today happens to be a very special day: the latest PRINT issue of Current Affairs, Issue 42, has been released! While it is said that nothing can compare to the pleasures of reading the Current Affairs News Briefing, this is not strictly true. There is one greater form of joy, and it comes from perusing a copy of Current Affairs magazine. Get immediate access to the new digital issue by subscribing now, and be first in line to get the print issue in your mailbox when it rolls off the presses. This one contains in-depth pieces on AOC, Rupert Murdoch, centrist mayors, anti-capitalist TV shows, shady life coaches, and much more.
And now, onto the news. Remember: send tips for stories you’d like us to cover to editor@currentaffairs.org. And we hope our readers stay safe amid the dystopian heat and smoke blanketing the land.
I. WHAT SHOULD BE IN THE NEWS?
U.N. GITMO REPORT DETAILS “INHUMAN” TREATMENT
A new report from the U.N. Human Rights Council is out detailing the horrid conditions at Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. base in Cuba where thirty detainees accused of terror attacks are still imprisoned. The investigators, who were given unfettered access to the facility for the first time in its 20-year history, described the treatment of prisoners as “cruel, inhuman, and degrading,” and said it “may meet the legal threshold for torture.” According to the report:
“In every meeting she held with a detainee or former detainee, [special reporter Fionnuala Ní Aoláin] was told with great regret that she had arrived ‘too late.’ She agrees. At the time of her visit only 34 detainees remained at the site. It is evident that the horror and harms of extraordinary rendition, arbitrary detention, and systematic torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment inflicted over time occurred in part because of an exceptional and international law deficient legal and policy regime; the permeation of arbitrariness across subsequent detention practices; and the lack of international law compliant domestic oversight and accountability…”
While we’re told to think of these detainees as “terrorists,” it’s important to recognize that most of them have ever been tried or convicted of a crime. Many have never even been charged with a crime. Nearly 800 men and boys have passed through there over the last 21 years, with many enduring years of torture. The ones who have been released—because again, they could not be found guilty of crimes—have not received any redress from the U.S. for the psychological scars they still bear. The president has the unilateral authority to close Guantanamo, yet Obama didn’t, Trump expanded it, and Biden continues to keep it open. If America actually believes any of the values about law and justice it purports to, then these men should either be put on trial or released.
Two US Army Military Police escort a detainee, dressed in his new orange jumpsuit to a cell at Camp X-Ray, Guantanamo Bay Navy Base, Cuba. Camp X-Ray is the holding facility for detainees held at the US Navy Base during Operation Enduring Freedom. (Source: Shane T. Mccoy, USN/Combined Military Service Digital Photographic Files)
TRUMP THREATENS TO DEPORT SOCIALISTS
In a campaign speech this past weekend, former-President Trump said the following,
“Using federal law, I will order my government to deny entry to all Communists and all Marxists. So we're going to keep foreign Christian-hating communists, Marxists and socialists out of America. Federal law prohibits the entry of communists and totalitarians into the United States. But my question is: what do we do with the ones that are already here, that grew up here? I think we have to pass a new law for them… At the end of the day, either the Communists destroy America, or we destroy the Communists. This is the final battle. With you at my side, we will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the communists.”
Trump has done and said a number of shocking, extreme things over the course of his time in politics, but this—and the cheers from his followers to “deport them!”—is chilling even for him.
Trump appears to be suggesting not only deporting permanent residents, but revoking the citizenship of American citizens—and potentially a huge number of them—for having different political beliefs than his own. There are instances of immigrants being rounded up and deported for simply having leftist sympathies throughout American history—such as the Palmer Raids of 1919 and 1920 or the McCarthy Era in the early 1950s. But Trump appears to want to take things even further.
And remember, he is not just talking about self-described socialists (though they obviously shouldn’t be deported either). Right-wingers call everyoneto their left a communist, from tepid liberals like BarackObama (who once said he’d have been a Republican in the 1990s) and HillaryClinton (who shamelessly defends Wall Street bankers) to even some conservatives likeMitt Romney(a literal private equity executivewho called the rich “makers” and the poor “takers”). If these people are socialists, then that label can be applied to anyone who isn’t a total MAGA sycophant.
It’s often fruitless to get lost in the semantic debate about whether the word “fascist” applies precisely to Trump, but the revoking of citizenship for political opponents certainly rhymeswith that period of history. If only someone had written a poem about what this sort of thing can lead to.
II. SUPREME COURT UPDATE
It’s been a few weeks since our last dispatch about the Divine Council of Robed Elders. Since we last wrote about their solemn deliberations, they have bequeathed so much more righteous wisdom upon our fallen land. Here is a rundown of some of their most important rulings of late (check out the New York Times’ tracker for summaries of more cases):
In a decision that will screw over millions of people, Biden’s $400 billion Student Loan Debt forgiveness program has been struck down by the Court’s conservatives. Though the HEROES Act grants the president authority to “waive or modify” student financial assistance programs during national emergencies, the Court majority ruled that Congress needs to give its explicit endorsement. This ruling will be devastating to the finances of millions of student loan borrowers who were led to believe that they would be granted $10,000 worth of debt forgiveness (or $20,000 in the case of Pell Grant recipients). This is also a blow to Biden’s increasingly grim electoral fortunes. Young voters already find him rather useless, and now one of the few tangible things he has done for their benefit has just been wiped away.
“Independent State Legislature Theory”—the idea that state legislatures have unchecked power to set federal election laws—has been rejected by the Court (Gorsuch, Alito, and Thomas dissented).Rejecting North Carolina’s extreme partisan gerrymander, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the Constitution “does not exempt state legislatures from the ordinary constraints imposed by state law.” This is a very good thing: had this fringe theory been accepted, it could have given states free rein to redistrict and pass voter suppression laws virtually unchecked. Some even speculate that it could allow state legislatures to unilaterally overturn the results of elections and appoint their own slates of electors—as Trump wanted them to do in 2020.
The conservatives on the court struck down affirmative action in both public and private college admissions, saying that UNC and Harvard’s processes “unavoidably employ race in a negative manner” and “involve racial stereotyping.” To get a sense of the consequences of this ruling, we can look to the nine states that have already outlawed affirmative action: Black college enrollment dropped significantly. And in states that also banned it in employment, it led to much lower workforce participation among Black and Latino people. Still, affirmative action only helps to solve a small part of the bigger problem of generational wealth inequality between races. It’s also possible that this ruling contains a wide enough loophole that colleges committed to continuing affirmative action will be able to maintain diversity in their incoming classes.
The 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act—which gives Native American parents preference in adoption cases—was upheld by the Court, with only Thomas and Alito dissenting. A white family argued that it violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, but the Court brushed that aside, stating that Congress’ power to pass such a law was sound. Native tribes have found a surprisingly staunch ally in the usually very conservative Neil Gorsuch, who wrote a stirring concurring opinion in their favor, writing: “Often, Native American tribes have come to this court seeking justice only to leave with bowed heads and empty hands...our Constitution reserves for the tribes a place—an enduring place— in the structure of American life.”
Gorsuch was also the lone conservative dissenter in a dreadful 5-4 decision denying the Navajo Nation water rights that they argued should have been theirs under an 1868 treaty. Approximately 30 percent of people on the reservation in Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, live without running water. And the Court declined to enforce even a modest obligation on the part of the United States to honor the Navajo’s water rights. As Gorsuch writes, “the Navajo have a simple ask: They want the United States to identify the water rights it holds for them. And if the United States has misappropriated the Navajo’s water rights, the Tribe asks it to formulate a plan to stop doing so prospectively.”
Boundary marker of the Navajo Indian reservation, now called the Navajo Nation, near Cameron, Arizona (Source: Carol M. Highsmith's America Project, The Library of Congress)
The conservatives on the Court, plus the liberal Elena Kagan, upheld a ban on speech that “encourages or induces” illegal immigration. A person can be jailed for five years under this law for encouraging someone to cross the border illegally, and ten years if they do so by offering money. The ACLU has argued that this is a major abridgment of free speech, and that it could potentially lead to the prosecutions of…
“A woman who tells her undocumented housekeeper that she should not depart the U.S. or else she won’t be allowed back in. (A former U.S. Customs and Border Protection official stood trial in just such a case.)
A university president who publishes an op-ed arguing that DACA recipients should consider her campus to be a “sanctuary” after their deferred action expires.
A community organization that announces its shelters and soup kitchens are open to homeless undocumented youth in their area.”
The Court’s conservatives ruled that a Christian web designer could refuse to design a website for a same-sex wedding. The Court said the Colorado law which would require her to do so constitutes “compelled speech,” interfering with her First Amendment rights. Justice Sotomayor dissented, writing,
"Today, the Court, for the first time in its history, grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse to serve members of a protected class…LGBT people have existed for all of human history. And as sure as they have existed, others have sought to deny their existence, and to exclude them from public life.”
BEWARE! THE BEZOS POST SAYS STRIKING UPS WORKERS ARE COMING FOR YOUR PACKAGES…AND THEY COULD BE AFTER POOR AMAZON NEXT! WHO WILL STOP THEM?
Singapore held its first LGBTQ Pride event since the country decriminalized homosexuality last year. Looks like Matt Walsh will need to find a different authoritarian country to fetishize.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers is asking Biden to give Ukraine cluster munitions. These projectiles “scatter small bomblets over a wide area,” and were outlawed by an international convention in 2010. Much like landmines, these weapons have a tendency to blow up innocent people for years after their initial use. Both the U.S. and Russia use cluster munitions in violation of the convention.
After Obama criticized Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attacks on the country’s Muslims, members of Modi’s cabinet hit backhard on Obama’s own human rights record: “[Obama] was commenting on Indian Muslims… having bombed Muslim-majority countries from Syria to Yemen… during his presidency,” said Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. Modi may be an absolute menace, but his lackey here brings up a very good point!
Not long ago, “Greedflation,” the idea that corporate price gouging was a dominant driver of global inflation, was dismissed as a kooky progressive “conspiracy theory.” Well, now the International Monetary Fund, notexactly a left-wing institution, has said “rising corporate profits were the largest contributor to Europe’s inflation over the last two years.” It’s hard being right all the time.
An opinion piece by Belén Fernández in Al Jazeera discusses the rise of anti-immigrant rhetoric in Italian politics, personified by its neo-fascist Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.She argues that the resulting policies, such as efforts to ban migrant rescue operations, have contributed to tragedies like the shipwreck that killed 94 migrants in February.
THIS WEEK IN UNFATHOMABLE IRONY
Disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong is suddenly very concerned about fairness in sports…and you’ll never guess why…
As we’ve written in Current Affairs Magazine, the arguments commonly used against transgender athletes— often framed as “common sense”—actually fall apart under the barest of scrutiny. But this concern is especially rich coming from Armstrong, given that he is most remembered now for using performance-enhancing drugs to cheat his way to seven consecutive Tour de France titles—titles that have since been stripped. TV writer Mike Drucker put it best on Twitter: “If Lance Armstrong actually believed people are pretending to be trans to cheat at sports, he would have tried it already.”
IV. AROUND THE STATES
A two-year-old boyshot and killed his mother in Ohio last week. According to data from Everytown for Gun Safety, there were 122 cases in which a child unintentionally shot someone in just the first four-and-a-half months of 2023 (a third of those shootings were by children under five). Amazingly, this is an improvement over recent years—in 2020 and 2021, for instance, there was an average of more than one of these shootings per day.
In the winter of 2021, Texas’ power grid failed, leading at least 246 people to die in the bitter cold. Since then, the nonprofit in charge of that grid has been inundated with thousands of lawsuits seeking damages for failing to prepare for cold weather (something they still haven’t done even after the storm). But last week, the all-Republican Supreme Court of Texas ruled 5-4 that the nonprofit which runs the state’s almost totally privatized and deregulated energy grid has “sovereign immunity” and cannot be sued.
National Geographic is laying off its last staff writers. Contrary to what you might think, this isn’t because print media is simply not viable anymore—the magazine still has nearly 2 million subscribers. But its owner, Disney, has realized that it’s cheaper to pay freelancers than full-time staff. This isn’t a story about traditional media dying because of changing consumer tastes, but a classic tale of rapacious corporate profit-seeking destroying an otherwise-viable institution. It shows why we need not-for-profit media if we’re going to preserve journalism. (Though we have our own critiques of National Geographic’s imperialist lens on the world.)
A jails officer at Rikers Island prison in New York City, has been accused of faking suicide prevention courses for 74 guards, despite the fact that 13 inmates have killed themselves since 2021. Mayor Eric Adams has also initiated $17 million in spending cuts that would have funded job training, drug rehab, mental health for detainees, while providing Rikers officers with $90,000 worth of submachine guns. The prison on Rikers is an absolute death trap, one of the most violent in the country. But Adams has stonewalled investigators who have tried to figure out just how many deaths, assaults, and instances of police brutality have occurred there.
Last December, Congress and the Biden administration blocked what could have been a major national strike by freight rail workers at Norfolk Southern, CSX, Union Pacific, and others. At the time, it was disheartening to see both parties stomp on the labor movement. But since then, the rail workers have continued to fight in contract negotiations and (with a bit of help from Bernie Sanders) got one of their main demands: several railroad companies have agreed to give their workers four days of paid sick leave (up from zero). Workers shouldn’t have to fight for such small morsels of basic dignity, but it is nevertheless inspiring to see them prevail here.
Royal Caribbean has unveiled the world’s largest cruise ship. The “Icon of the Seas” is nearly 1,200 feet long and can hold more than 5,600 passengers. It also has 20 decks and six “record-breaking” water slides.
The Icon of the Seas, from Royal Caribbean
The ship is scheduled to set sail in 2024…that is, of course, unless the orcas have something to say about it…
Could Joe Manchin make a third-party run? His former political operative says it’s possible, and that he could run with the “centrist” group “No Labels,” which has raised $70 million in the hopes of running a “unity ticket” with one Democrat and one Republican to “bring America back to the center.” If Manchin—who voted with Trump half the time and has done morethananyone to sabotage progressive policy under Biden—is the more liberal member of that prospective ticket, then the so-called “center” they imagine sounds awfully far to the right.
Trump’s immigration advisor Stephen Miller allegedly suggested using predator drones to blow up boats filled with unarmed migrants, according to a new book written by a former Trump administration official. Miller denies advocating this atrocity, but Rolling Stone—which first reported on it—claims to have documentation supporting the claim. We would not be surprised if it is true, given Miller’s record.
Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley has kindly suggested that maybe women “shouldn’t be jailed or given the death penalty” for having abortions. Presumably, this was an oblique reference to a Republican bill in her home state of South Carolina which defines abortion as “murder,” which would make it punishable by execution. At the risk of sounding like too much of a bleeding heart, however, Haley then refused to answer whether she would sign a six-week abortion ban if it hit her desk as president.
BIRD FACT OF THE DAY
Flamingos produce red milk in their digestive tracts and feed it to their young in a way that looks quite terrifying and bizarre.
Writing and research by Stephen Prager. 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.
