Jan. 26, 2024 ❧ Texas defying the Supreme Court, rent is still too damn high, and "Libs of TikTok" takes over Oklahoma libraries
Plus: The ICJ rules on Israel genocide case, the New Hampshire primaries, dissention in UAW over Biden and Gaza, crisis in the Congo, and dolphins' naming conventions
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STORIES THAT SHOULD BE BIGGER
IN TEXAS, GOVERNOR ABBOTT MOVES TO DEFY SUPREME COURT RULING ON DEADLY BORDER RAZOR WIRE
In Texas, a battle is brewing between state and federal law enforcement over the state’s use of deadly razor wire to deter migrants. For over two years, the Texas National Guard, at the orders of Governor Greg Abbott, has blocked asylum seekers from entering the state using this concertina wire—which resulted in at least 133 injuries to migrants over just two months, and last week resulted in the deaths of a mother and her two children.
When the Department of Homeland Security intervened to remove the wire, the Texas National Guard physically blocked the federal border patrol’s entrance. Texas then sued the federal government and the far-right Fifth Circuit astonishingly ruled in Texas’ favor, agreeing that it had the authority to block federal border enforcement. In an all-too-rare correct decision, the US Supreme Court on Monday overturned the Fifth Circuit’s decision, sided with the federal government, and affirmed that Texas is bound by federal immigration law and that the Biden DHS could take the razor wire down. As Ian Millheiser writes in Vox:
One of the most well-settled questions in US constitutional law is that duly enacted federal laws overcome all state laws that conflict with them, and that states may not prevent federal officials from performing their official job duties…The immediate issue before the Supreme Court is not whether Texas is allowed to construct such a barrier against the wishes of the federal government, which is itself a doubtful proposition. The Supreme Court has long held that “the supremacy of the national power in the general field of foreign affairs, including power over immigration, naturalization and deportation, is made clear by the Constitution.”
But that was not the end. The Abbott administration issued a statement declaring “Texas’ constitutional right to self-defense” and a tweet stating that it will continue using the wire. It comes as several Texas Republicans, including Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) have urged him to defy the Supreme Court, saying “You tell the court to go to hell, you defend yourself and then figure it out later.” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has also encouraged Abbott to defy the court, along with Republican governors in 25 states.
Following the Supreme Court ruling, the Texas National Guard has still not budged and continues to block federal agents from entering the 2.5-mile area blocked with wire. This is shaping up to be a case in which Texas will act in open defiance of the federal government in what Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch calls “the greatest threat to federal authority since the South's 'massive resistance' in the 1950s and '60s to the Supreme Court's landmark Brown v. Board of Ed ruling that mandated school integration.”
Some Democrats are now suggesting drastic measures in response: Congressman Joaquin Castro (D-TX) said Tuesday that “If Abbott is defying yesterday's Supreme Court ruling, [Biden] needs to establish sole federal control of the Texas National Guard now.”
It’s not the first time in the last year that Republicans have defied the court, but the Biden administration has yet to take action. In The Atlantic last month, David A. Graham described a “New Era of Defiance” specifically around voting rights cases in which Republicans in Southern states Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana have refused to implement or only partially implemented Supreme Court orders that required them to redraw voting districts after previous maps were ruled to disenfranchise Black voters. The situation brewing on Texas’ border is more of the same, but given that it involves a possible physical confrontation between state and federal authorities, the potential ramifications are even more worrisome. A good portion of the country is already jonesing for a civil war, and direct conflict between Biden’s border patrol and Abbott’s National Guard could be the spark that ignites that flame.
It is, of course, a bit surprising that Republicans are the ones regularly defying the Supreme Court. Democrats have had quite a bit more to defy of late given the court’s overwhelmingly right-wing decisions. We have not seen Democratic states or the Biden administration attempt anything like this. But if Republicans are going to do it to keep impaling migrants with sharp wire and reducing Black voters’ power at the ballot box, why shouldn’t Democrats defy states’ abortion bans or reinstate EPA regulations or keep wiping out student debt?
HALF OF AMERICANS CAN’T AFFORD RENT
Intuitively, most people know that—as New York activist Jimmy McMillan famously put it in the 2000s—the rent is too damn high. But now, there’s data to back that slogan up. In a new report, Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies found that U.S. rents have spiked dramatically since the onset of COVID-19, and they aren’t coming down. In 2022, a record 22.4 million households were “cost-burdened” when it comes to their living situation, following “historically high rent increases”—meaning that they spent more than 30 percent of their total household income on rent alone. Out of that number, roughly half were “severely” cost-burdened, meaning that rent consumed more than 50 percent of their paychecks. In total, the number of people struggling to afford housing was “50 percent, up 3.2 percentage points from 2019,” and the increase “entirely offsets the modest improvements in cost-burden rates recorded between 2014 and 2019.” Speaking to NPR, Genuine Campbell, a single mom who rents an apartment in Philadelphia, explains what this means in real human terms:
“Do you want to pay the bills and then give half the rent, or do you want to try to do the whole rent and then be back on bills?” she says. Campbell says the area isn't even safe enough for her kids to play outside, but the rents are still way out of line with what she can make. “You have to work in, like, maybe a hospital or [as a] police officer ... just to keep up with the rent,” she says.
But don’t worry, everyone: some very smug men online assure us the economy is doing just great!
In Maine, some people are working toward a solution. Last year, State Representative Benjamin Collings of Portland introduced a new bill called H.P. 543 to directly address the issues of exorbitant rent and homelessness. If passed, the bill would add a simple referendum to the November ballot in Maine, asking:
“Do you favor amending the Constitution of Maine to declare that all individuals have a natural, inherent and unalienable right to housing?”
There’s reason to believe that voters would say “yes.” In a 2022 YouGov survey, 72 percent of Americans said they believed housing to be a “basic human right”—and that figure even includes 63 percent of Republicans! In public hearings about Collings’ proposal, Representative Amy Roeder of Bangor endorsed “putting this resolution’s fate in the hands of voters,” saying that it would give ordinary citizens “a part in helping to resolve our housing crisis.” However, Naomi Cowperthwaite, a resident of Thomaston, raised a familiar complaint: “This isn't freedom, it's socialism.” In a way, Ms. Cowperthwaite is correct. Establishing a right to safe, clean housing for everyone, regardless of their ability to pay, is socialism. And it’s about time we had more of it.
CROOKS vs. SICKOS (or, “What’s going on with our politicians?”)
❧ The United Auto Workers have endorsed Joe Biden for President—but a lot of members aren't happy about it. As he announced the endorsement, UAW leader Shawn Fain said that “Joe Biden bet on the American worker, while Donald Trump blamed the American worker,” calling Trump a “scab.” He has a point: last year, Biden famously became the first President to join a picket line for the UAW, while Trump visited a non-union workplace as a guest of the boss. Considering his anti-labor track record, it’s likely that a second Trump term would include a renewed assault on workers’ rights—so as a strategic move, there’s an argument for endorsing Biden.
However, there are complications. For one thing, although Biden’s NLRB has made important rulings to expand worker’s rights, Biden himself has also worked against unions on some occasions, personally signing a law to prevent a railway strike in 2022. For another, the UAW has publicly called for a ceasefire in Gaza, while the Biden administration continues to aid and abet the Israeli bombing spree, which has killed more than 25,000 people, mostly civilians. As a moral question, being complicit in that kind of massacre outweighs much of the good work Biden has done on labor issues—and it seems many UAW members agree, with one shop steward telling The Intercept that “Multiple people I spoke with were all of the mind that this was a horrible time for an endorsement.” Some of those people took action, interrupting Biden’s acceptance speech with chants of “ceasefire now” before being dragged away by security. According to one New York Times reporter, Shawn Fain responded to the protests by saying the UAW members were “exercising their democratic rights,” and promised that “the UAW would continue calling for a cease fire.” If so, that’s a positive sign—but the whole issue could have been avoided by simply refusing to endorse the President until he stops flooding the Middle East with bombs.
❧ The New Hampshire primaries are over: and you’ll never guess what happened! Trump and Biden both won, though each election contained its own bits of weirdness. On the Republican side, Trump secured a little over 54 percent of the vote, 11 points over the second place finisher Nikki Haley. While this is still a comfortable margin, it’s far from the trouncing many expected. In a speech that sounded like one given by a victor, Haley declared the race “far from over,” but it’s somewhat deceiving. New Hampshire has open primaries, which means that Democrats and Independents were also allowed to participate—according to a CNN exit poll, 70 percent of the people who voted for Haley were not registered Republicans. So while it may indicate good fortune for Haley if she were to reach the general—any path for her is much more likely to come via a Trump conviction or fortuitously-timed heart attack than through a Republican primary victory.
The Democratic primary in New Hampshire was even weirder. New DNC rules changed the primary schedule to put South Carolina first on the list, making the New Hampshire results purely symbolic. Biden did not even appear on the ballot, but still won 64 percent of the vote via write-ins. With Rep. Dean Phillips in a distant second, there is no realistic opposition to Biden 2024, which is astounding given his unpopularity, including with the Democratic base. Around 1,500 people fed up with the Biden administration’s total disregard for the catastrophic loss of life in Gaza wrote “Ceasefire” on their ballots—it received 1.2 percent of the vote for president.
AROUND THE STATES
❧ Chaya Raichik, the creator of the infamous “Libs of TikTok” Twitter account, has been appointed to an Oklahoma library panel. For the blissfully unaware, “Libs of TikTok” is an account dedicated to mocking people with socially progressive views (the titular “libs”) and to promoting homophobic outrage and panic about things like Pride flags, chosen pronouns, and openly gay teachers in schools. As USA Today pointed out last November, people and places featured on “Libs of TikTok” frequently receive bomb threats, and in one case armed members of the Proud Boys street gang showed up to harass patrons at a drag show the account had posted about. The account’s creator, Chaya Raichik, seems overjoyed about this, posing and grinning with a USA Today headline about the fact that her posts have led to violent threats, including to multiple children’s hospitals. LGBTQ magazine The Advocate describes Raichik’s social media activity as a key example of “stochastic terrorism”—a pattern in which someone doesn’t commit violence themselves, but helps to single out targets for others who do.
Raichik celebrates the fact that her posts inspire violent threats. (Image: Libs of TikTok via The Advocate)
Despite—or rather, because of—this behavior, Raichik enjoys a friendly relationship with some of the biggest names in conservative politics. She’s had dinner with Donald Trump, received praise from Ted Cruz, and even been offered a stay in the Florida governor’s mansion by Ron DeSantis. Now, she’s been given a government job too. Ryan Walters, the State Superintendent for Oklahoma’s public schools, has appointed Raichik to serve on his Library Media Advisory Committee, where she’ll have a say in what books are—and are not—allowed on school shelves. Raichik is, of course, utterly unqualified for the role: besides her obvious political obsessions, she isn’t licensed to work as a teacher or librarian, isn’t a parent, and has no ties to Oklahoma. Her appointment appears to be purely ideological—which makes sense, as Ryan Walters himself is a far-right zealot who’s previously tried to put the Bible and PragerU videos on school curricula. For many people in Oklahoma, though, Raichik is a bridge too far. In the Tulsa World, the editorial board makes their disgust clear:
This political theater leads to division, distrust and harm. Oklahoma children and youths need champions. They need people at the state level who understand their challenges and are willing to represent all of them. Raichik is not that person; she is a far-right conservative caricature concerned about a national profile. Walters has embarrassed the state by associating us with her, and it likely won't be the last time he does so.
PAST AFFAIRS
“Libs of Tiktok” Is Orwell’s “Two Minutes Hate” by Nathan J. Robinson, from October 2023
AROUND THE WORLD
❧ Workers in Argentina have staged a one-day general strike against President Javier Milei’s austerity policies. The protest was organized mainly by the CGT (Confederación General del Trabajo,) the largest trade union in Argentina, together with members of the center-left Peronist party that Milei narrowly defeated in last November’s elections. It’s not hard to see why the workers are angry: since taking office, Milei has implemented dramatic new austerity measures, including laying off 5,000 government employees and cutting the value of the Argentinian peso in half. Exact numbers are hard to judge, but the Associated Press estimates that “tens of thousands” of people took part in the strike, including workers at “banks, gas stations, public administration, public health officials and trash collection,” and at the state-owned airline, which canceled at least 267 flights. By itself, a one-day strike won’t bring down the Milei government, or even seriously alter its plans—but it’s a reminder that when workers get together, they’re capable of grinding any country to a halt, and bringing any leader to his knees.
⚜ LONG READ: In Al Jazeera, Jeremy Corbyn urges us not to ignore the crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Corbyn has been busy lately, joining the delegation for South Africa’s genocide case against Israel and editing a collection of political poetry. But unlike a lot of the international press, he’s been paying attention to events in the Congo, too:
Against the global backdrop of deafening silence, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is currently experiencing a harrowing humanitarian crisis. Nearly seven million people have been internally displaced in the DRC and 26 million need humanitarian aid. One in three children are out of school. Tens of thousands of civilians experience physical, sexual and gender-based violence, used as a tool of control and degradation. Meanwhile, the DRC remains one of the [United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’] most underfunded operations worldwide. Today’s humanitarian crisis in the DRC did not emerge out of nowhere. It is an enduring legacy of colonial theft, violence and exploitation.
As Corbyn points out, the Congo wouldn’t be in such a crisis if it weren’t for the decades it spent under Belgian colonial rule, and the subsequent meddling of Western nations in its internal affairs—most notably, the 1961 assassination of Patrice Lumumba, its first democratically-elected President who was replaced by a US-backed despot, Joseph Mobutu, who ruled the country as a dictatorship for more than 30 years. Even today, Congolese workers are viciously exploited to provide raw materials like cobalt and copper to the rest of the world. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom refuses to condemn Rwanda for funding violent paramilitary groups in the Congo, one of the main causes of the current crisis, because its government wants a deal to deport refugees seeking asylum in the U.K. to Rwanda. It’s all one big network of racism, imperialism, and bloodshed, and Corbyn makes a powerful call for humanitarian aid to end it:
Many of those in positions of power and influence pretend as if the plight of people in the Global South simply does not matter. Whenever there is a crisis, if it is in Africa, then it may as well not have happened. How much more violence, death and displacement should the people of the DRC endure before the international community wakes up and takes action? The people of the DRC – just like the people of Palestine, West Papua, Yemen, Sudan and beyond – deserve to live in peace, justice and freedom. Their voices cannot be ignored any longer.
BOOK OF THE WEEK
In Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives, University of Nottingham professor Siddharth Kara explores the often brutal conditions of exploitation and child labor in central Africa’s mining industry, and documents the “testimonies of the people living, working, and dying for cobalt.” It’s a harrowing read at times—but for anyone in the West who uses modern technology built with these minerals, it’s a critically important one.
❧ After South Africa laid out a case that Israel is perpetrating a genocide in Gaza earlier this month, the International Court of Justice on Friday issued a ruling ordering Israel to do everything in its power to prevent acts of genocide against Palestinians. However, they stopped short of mandating a ceasefire while ordering Israel to take actions including punishing those who incite violence against civilians and allowing more aid into the Gaza Strip. The court’s orders are legally binding, but enforcement is notoriously difficult.
The ruling comes as the Israeli military campaign has intensified its military campaign in Khan Younis in Southern Gaza, the strip’s second-largest city, where much of the Northern population was forced to flee after it dubbed a “safe area” by Israel. Israeli tanks fired on a crowd of people seeking humanitarian aid—killing 20 people and wounding another 150 on Thursday. The day before, fire from an Israeli tank hit a crowded UN shelter in an attack that has thus far killed 12 people and injured 75 more, with ten left in critical condition. The day before that, a harrowing video emerged of a 51-year-old children’s clothing salesman—Ramzi Abu Sahloul—being interviewed by a British journalist for ITV. He said:
“Nowhere is safe in Gaza. Everywhere you find the Israeli Army. They shoot at us at home, in any building and in the street. The Israelis came to us and told us to evacuate but they didn’t let my brother out. We want to go and try to get them, God willing.”
Minutes after the interview was filmed, the Israeli army immediately proved him correct. A captured Sahloul walking with a group of four other unarmed Palestinian men holding their hands up and waving a white flag to signal that they were not a threat. Israeli snipers fired upon the group, leading Sahloul to be killed. Philippe Lazzarini of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees called the attack a show of “blatant disregard of basic rules of war." Israel has blamed these attacks on Hamas, but given that Israel is the only party in the conflict with tanks, it seems highly unlikely that Hamas was responsible for firing upon these people with tanks.
ISRAELI MEDIA FOCUSING ON THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS
❧ In Italy, a ship owned by the humanitarian NGO SOS Mediterranee has been impounded under a draconian law passed last year banning organizations from helping refugees lost at sea without government permission. The law was passed by the hard-right government of Premier Giorgia Meloni, whose Brothers of Italy party recently had a scandal in which its members were recorded alongside neo-fascist Youth Front group (of which Meloni herself was also a member) performing a fascist salute. Under Meloni’s law, which is intended to keep out North African migrants, “13 or 14 charity-run rescue ships have been impounded for various violations” according to the Associated Press. SOS Mediterranee had been doing good work up to this point: in December, they rescued 244 people off the Adriatic coast. And according to their website, they were presented with the 2023 Right Livelihood Award (sometimes referred to as the “alternative Nobel Prize”) for having rescued 38,500 people in the Mediterranean since 2017. But Meloni’s law has stifled them and other humanitarian organizations More than 3,000 people, many fleeing war-torn nations, died attempting to cross the Mediterranean last year and more than 28,800 have died making the perilous crossing since 2014.
DOLPHIN FACT OF THE DAY
Dolphins have names for one another!
According to the BBC, a 2013 study of bottlenose dolphins conducted University of St Andrews in Scotland found that the animals use a unique whistle to identify one another and that “when the animals hear their own call played back to them, they respond.”
The researchers studied a group of wild dolphins by recording the “signature sound” each one made. “We played signature whistles of animals in the group, we also played other whistles in their repertoire and then signature whistles of different populations - animals they had never seen in their lives," explained Dr. Vincent Janik, from the university's Sea Mammal Research Unit. They found that the dolphins responded to their own call by whistling it back, but did not respond to others. Janik says that this is necessary for dolphins because of their underwater habitat: "Most of the time they can't see each other, they can't use smell underwater, which is a very important sense in mammals for recognition, and they also don't tend to hang out in one spot, so they don't have nests or burrows that they return to."
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.
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