Sept. 8, 2023 ❧ Cop City crackdown, Student debt restarts, PragerU conquers another state, and Africa holds a climate summit
Plus the never-ending torrent of tropical storms, Cubans coerced into conscription contracts, Mexico decriminalizes abortion, narwhal theories, and more...
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SIXTY-ONE COP CITY PROTESTERS HIT WITH LUDICROUS RICO CHARGES
An Atlanta grand jury has just handed up an indictment on Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) charges against 61 protesters who attempted to stop the construction of the city’s giant new police training facility, nicknamed “Cop City.” Activists point to its potential to further militarize a police force that has a long history of brutality towards city residents, and to destroy hundreds of acres of vitally important forest land.
In our first ever news briefing, we covered the absurd efforts to charge dozens of protesters with “domestic terrorism”—a charge which can carry decades in prison—even though none of those accused had actually been accused of injuring anyone. Charging them under RICO, which is usually intended to go after vast criminal conspiracies by the mafia, gangs, and (recently) the Trump administration, is somehow even more absurd, and this is borne out by the flimsiness of the indictment itself. Using the broad charge of “conspiracy” —rather than charging individual actors for specific crimes—it lumps together actual violent acts, like throwing a Molotov cocktail at police, with lesser crimes like property damage, and even with totally legal acts of First Amendment-protected speech. It allows all the protesters, many of whom did nothing wrong, to be prosecuted. They now all face up to two decades in prison. Our editor-in-chief Nathan J. Robinson, who covered the indictment at greater length in Current Affairs magazine, writes,
The indictment is ludicrous, and the ACLU has condemned it in the strongest terms, calling it a “breathtakingly broad and unprecedented use of state terrorism, anti-racketeering, and money laundering laws against protesters” that “stigmatize[s] and target[s] those who disagree with the government.” It’s transparently a mis-application of the law, since nothing about the protesters’ actions in any way resembles “racketeering” (operating a business with illegally derived income). Obviously, various protesters have broken particular laws at various points (such is the nature of civil disobedience). But the new indictment lumps them all together as part of a giant conspiracy, so that even the most minor acts (such as writing the letters “ACAB”) are considered by the prosecutors to be proof of felonious criminal wrongdoing.
The 109-page indictment is absolutely full of First Amendment violations. I’ve never seen anything quite like it in my years reading legal documents. The prosecutors are quite open about treating protesters’ belief in eco-anarchism as an important part of their wrongful conduct, with their shared ideas being the “conspiracy.” It’s a chilling document, because if the standards it applies are taken seriously, practically any activist for any cause has to fear being charged as part of a criminal conspiracy. If any people in a protest movement break a law, then huge numbers of the other people in the protest movement (who did not break any laws) can still be charged as part of a “conspiracy.”
The indictment also goes to absurd lengths to tie these 61 protesters to totally unrelated acts of violence that occurred during the summer of unrest following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in 2020. Robinson continues,
It dates the origins of the “conspiracy” to the George Floyd protests, and has a long paragraph on how, in the midst of that uprising and discontent over the killing of Rayshard Brooks, the Wendy’s where Brooks was killed was burned to the ground. (“While the Brooks shooting was justified, it caused anti-police violence tensions to boil over,” says the indictment.) The indictment says the area was occupied by “armed Blood street gang members” for several days and that “an innocent 8-year-old would be shot and killed by armed gang members.” But nowhere does the indictment suggest that any of the people in DTF are “Blood street gang members.” It doesn’t allege that they met the people who shot an 8-year-old, let alone that they actually shot the child. The information is just there to create a nebulous association between lawlessness, “anti-police sentiment,” and the forest defenders.
The indictment treats the protesters’ “eco-anarchist” political ideology, and acts of speech they used to express it, as furthering the “conspiracy.” For example,
The indictment makes clear that the prosecutors object to the protesters’ “anti-police” agenda. At one point, it says that Defend the Atlanta Forest “began a propaganda campaign against police” after a police officer shot and killed one of the protesters. The protester in question, Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán, was riddled with 57 gunshot wounds, and while police claim Tortuguita shot them first, there is evidence to the contrary. Nevertheless, the indictment says that “evidence demonstrated that the Defend the Atlanta Forest member shot the trooper first,” and so treats protesters’ arguments to the contrary as a “propaganda campaign.” The indictment even cites the fact that three protesters “did distribute flyers calling Trooper Jonathan Saucedo a murderer,” which it characterizes as “an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy.”
This is a textbook demonstration of how vague laws like RICO (which, incidentally, was used by this very same grand jury to indict Trump and 18 alleged co-conspirators for seeking to overturn the state’s 2020 election result) can be used to criminalize vast swathes of behavior. Regardless of who it is used against, it’s worth considering how such sweeping prosecutorial power can be abused to attack dissident speech and political action. As Christopher Bruce, policy and advocacy director at ACLU of Georgia, writes,
Democracy requires dissent and our state’s officials should not be exposing individuals to potentially decades in prison for engaging in protest.
STUDENT LOAN PAYMENTS SET TO RESTART
After three years’ pause, the Biden administration has allowed federal student loans to begin accruing interest again, and will start demanding payments on October 1st. Having promised to “cancel $10,000 of student debt for low- to middle-income borrowers,” and even sent out nine million emails falsely claiming that borrowers had been approved for debt forgiveness, Biden’s Department of Education has in fact delivered no such aid. Instead, they’ve cobbled together the SAVE plan, a revised version of existing income-driven repayment plans which “forgives remaining balances after a certain number of years” and will “save other borrowers around $1,000 per year.” It is, technically, something. But for millions of recent graduates, the return of student loan payments comes as a crushing financial hardship, and a deep betrayal.
The official narrative, of course, is that Biden’s hands were tied. The Supreme Court ruled in June that the $10,000 forgiveness plan overstepped the limits of executive power, and that was the end of it. But this lets Biden and the Democratic Party off the hook, both for the feebleness of their original attempt and their lack of will to fight for debt relief after the Court’s verdict. In the first place, the $10,000 figure was always a wishy-washy compromise: if the President has the authority to forgive that sum, then surely he could wipe it all out. In fact, doing so would have been much simpler, and not allowed finance companies and libertarian think tanks the time they needed to file nuisance lawsuits against the plan. A president who forgave all student loans with an executive order on Day One of his term would be in a much stronger position, and could simply dare the Supreme Court to reverse such an overwhelmingly popular move. Even now, Biden could defy the Court, which is obviously corrupt and has historically low approval ratings. So far, he shows no sign of doing it.
The damaging effects of student loan debt, both on individual people and the economy at large, are well known. According to a 2021 report by the National Association of Realtors—hardly a bunch of wild-eyed socialists—60 percent of millennials with student loans are putting off buying a home, some of them indefinitely. Meanwhile, as Lily Sánchez has written for Current Affairs, debt of any kind is associated with negative health outcomes, mainly related to chronic stress. And it’s disproportionately women and African Americans who have student debt in the first place, making its continued imposition a matter of racial and gender-based injustice.
The crowning irony is that it was Donald Trump’s administration that first put the loans on pause—however reluctantly—during the worst days of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it’s Joe Biden’s government that will restart them, without the aid that was promised. In the upcoming election cycle, young voters are unlikely to forget the fact, and Trump will doubtless seize on it as he ramps up his attacks on the sitting President. With some recent polls showing a virtual tie between the two, student debt could be the single issue that tips the balance of the whole election. Maybe in November 2024, when it’s too late, Biden will regret the path he’s chosen.
AROUND THE STATES
❧ In Texas, the impeachment trial of Attorney General Ken Paxton has begun. Paxton, a prominent ally of former President Donald Trump, stands accused of corruption, bribery, and abuse of the public trust in connection with his former campaign donor, real estate developer Nate Paul. According to allegations by his former deputies, Paxton used his office to prevent Paul’s properties being sold in foreclosure, and pressured his staff to assist Paul with various other legal matters. In return, Paul made renovations to Paxton’s home, and hired a woman the Attorney General was having an extramarital affair with at the time. Back in May, the Republican-controlled Texas House of Representatives voted 121-23 to impeach Paxton, in a rare case of the GOP holding its own accountable for alleged public wrongdoing. For his part, Paxton has pleaded “not guilty” to all 20 charges against him. If convicted, he could be barred from holding office in Texas again. Here is a video of Paxton’s former staffer, Ryan Bangert, testifying that Paul “hijacked” the attorney general’s office:
❧ Oklahoma is now the second state, following Florida last month, to incorporate PragerU Kids, a deranged right-wing propaganda outlet, into its public school curriculum. This is not exactly surprising coming from the state’s superintendent, Ryan Walters, who made headlines last month when he said about the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, at which anywhere from 36 to 300 Black people were murdered and one of the most prosperous Black communities in the country was burnt to the ground by a white lynch mob, “Let’s not tie it to the skin color and say the skin color determined that.” PragerU’s content is about as accurate, which is to say not at all: it is full of outright propaganda denying climate change, praising Confederate generals and British imperialism, stating that religion is the only source of morality and that wealth inequality is a good thing, among many other ridiculous arguments.
Check out our fun, colorful, and very useful new guide on how to identify and defeat the propaganda techniques PragerU uses to indoctrinate viewers. You can purchase a physical copy in our store or subscribe to our magazine this week to receive a free PDF! And if you’re a teacher or librarian, please email editor@currentaffairs.org to ask about receiving discounted copies for your classroom.
CALL TO ACTION!
(A message from the Prager Restoration Society)
The co-author of this news briefing, Stephen Prager, bears NO RELATIONSHIP to Prager University or Dennis Prager. This, however, has not stopped many people—including his dentist, former employers, multiple professors, colleagues in his graduate program, a hostess at a steakhouse who took his reservation, and even a person on Twitter who questioned the credibility of his work—from asking him if he is related to the so-called “university’s” wretched founder. The man is an embarrassment to Pragers near and far—and yet he is far and away the most famous person to bear this name. So as a service to the author of this news briefing and his kin, we ask that our readers attempt to raise public consciousness about Alternative Pragers— people with that last name who have attained notoriety in less detestable ways. Some possible candidates include:
German paralympic skier Richard Prager, who won two silver medals at the 1976 Winter Paralympics in Sweden.
Investigative journalist Joshua Prager, who discovered that the 1951 New York baseball Giants won the National League pennant by engaging in an elaborate sign-stealing scheme and broke the story in the Wall Street Journal. He also unearthed the identity of the unknown child of Roe v. Wade plaintiff Norma McCorvey.
Cardiac surgeon and frozen food magnate Dr. Peter Praeger, who is the namesake behind Dr. Praeger’s Veggie Burgers (We know it is spelled differently, but the writer of this briefing is DESPERATE to be disassociated from Dennis).
If none of these people appeal to you, there is also a sizable crater on the Moon known as “Prager.” (It is the official position of Current Affairs magazine that Dennis Prager and the entire PragerU apparatus should be shipped to and dumped into this crater.)
❧ The latest chapter in Alabama’s voting-map drama has seen the state GOP’s gerrymandering efforts struck down again. Back in June, we reported that Alabama’s Republican-controlled legislature had concocted one of the most blatantly racist electoral maps ever seen, isolating most of the state’s Black citizens into a single, bizarrely shaped congressional district. In July, the state openly defied the U.S. Supreme Court, which had ordered them to create at least one other majority-Black district “or close to it.” Instead, the lawmakers created a district with a 40 percent Black population, which keen-eyed readers will notice is not “close to a majority.” Now, a panel of three federal judges has rejected the retooled Alabama map, ruling that it “plainly fails” to provide Black voters “a fair and reasonable opportunity to elect candidates of their choice.” Steven Marshall, Alabama’s Attorney General, insists that the state has done nothing wrong, and has indicated his intention to “promptly seek review from the Supreme Court”—which, although pathologically conservative, is unlikely to be amused by having its authority challenged in this way. Stay tuned for updates!
❧ LONG READ: Google may be the first tech monopoly to be broken up using federal antitrust laws. After first being sued by the DOJ three years ago for anti-competitive practices, Google’s trial will finally begin next week. David McCabe and Cecilia Kang write in the New York Times,
Such a consequential case over tech power has not unfolded since the Justice Department took Microsoft to court in 1998 for antitrust violations. But since then, companies like Google, Apple, Amazon and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, have woven themselves into people’s lives to an even greater degree. Any ruling from the trial could have broad ripple effects, slowing down or potentially dismantling the largest internet companies after decades of unbridled growth… The case centers on whether Google illegally cemented its dominance and squashed competition by paying Apple and other companies to make its internet search engine the default on the iPhone as well as on other devices and platforms. In legal filings, the Justice Department has argued that Google maintained a monopoly through such agreements, making it harder for consumers to use other search engines. Google has said that its deals with Apple and others were not exclusive and that consumers could alter the default settings on their devices to choose alternative search engines. Google has amassed 90 percent of the search engine market in the United States and 91 percent globally, according to Similarweb, a data analysis firm.
AROUND THE GLOBE
❧ Africa concluded its inaugural Climate Summit on Wednesday, finishing with a declaration calling for Western economies to invest more money in the continent’s green energy development. The “Nairobi Declaration” pointed out that Africa contributes very little to global carbon emissions (only around 2 to 3 percent according to the U.N.) but has dealt with some of the worst impacts—including a recent severe drought in the Horn of Africa and flooding in Central and West Africa. “Africa possesses both the potential and the ambition to be a vital component of the global solution to climate change,” the declaration reads, but Western nations often pass over it for green infrastructure funding—researchers say that the continent only receives about 12 percent of the funding it needs to cope with the worst impacts of climate change. The leaders urged developed countries, which contribute vastly more to climate change, to rally around a global carbon tax and changes that would make it easier for African nations to receive loans for green energy infrastructure. They hope that the declaration will serve as a basis for negotiations at November's COP28 Climate Change summit in Dubai.
Here is Kenyan President William Ruto speaking on how climate change is exacerbating African countries’ debts:
❧ Cuba says it has uncovered a “human trafficking network” that has been used to coerce its citizens into joining the Russian military and fighting in Ukraine. Cuban nationals living in Russia—many desperate for money—were reportedly offered monthly salaries of around $2,000 and Russian citizenship in exchange for signing contracts and entering the war. While providing few details, the Cuban government says they have begun to “neutralize and dismantle” the Russian effort to use its citizens as mercenaries. This effort comes after Russia earlier this year publicized its intent to increase its conscription numbers by 30 percent, as it has suffered heavy casualties during the invasion of Ukraine. Though Cuba is on friendly terms with Russia and has been critical of the U.S. role in funding Ukraine’s military, a statement from the island nation’s foreign ministry said “Cuba is not part of the war in Ukraine” and “will act energetically against anyone...who participates in any form of human trafficking for the purpose of recruitment of Cuban citizens as mercenaries to use arms against any country.”
❧ A powerful cyclone has struck Brazil, killing at least 39 people and driving thousands more from their homes. The storm mainly affected Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil’s southernmost state on its border with Uruguay. Beginning on the night of September 4th, the area was hit with as much as 11 inches of rain in a 24-hour period, along with high-speed winds that ripped the roofs from hundreds of homes. In the town of Muçum, many houses and roads were submerged by flooding, leaving motorists trapped in their cars, and emergency responders found 15 people killed in a single building. As of Thursday afternoon, anywhere from 2,300 to 3,000 people had been made homeless by the cyclone, although the full number is unknown and likely higher. The human tragedy is impossible to calculate—and like last week’s Hurricane Idalia, the cyclone is another manifestation of the escalating effects of climate change as it heats up the world’s oceans.
❧ Mexico’s Supreme Court just decriminalized abortion at the federal level. The nation’s penal code outlawing the practice was deemed unconstitutional by the high court. It will now be legal to practice in all federal hospitals across the country, which has more than 130 million people. Bans on doctors and midwives performing abortions were also effectively overturned. Abortion still remains illegal under the laws of 20 of Mexico’s 32 states, however, women can still get them in federal hospitals. As the U.S. moves in the opposite direction, Mexico becomes the latest country in Latin America to loosen restrictions on abortions in recent years. Colombia, Argentina, Uruguay, and Guyana have moved to either legalize or decriminalize abortion in recent years in what has been called the “green wave,” in reference to the green bandanas often worn by women protesting for their reproductive rights in the region. It’s the culmination of years of work by a women’s movement that has not only fought hard for its own rights, but has also extended a lot of generosity over the last few years to American women who have lost theirs by helping them obtain abortion pills they could not obtain in their states.
THIS WEEK IN EVIL
Big Pharma has been overcharging South Africa for COVID vaccines. On Tuesday, the Health Justice Initiative—a South African medical advocacy group founded in 2020—released their analysis of the country’s vaccine contracts with international companies, having won a court battle to make the information public. The contracts paint a disturbing picture. Since vaccines became available, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and other major firms have apparently been price-gouging the South African people, charging as much as 33 percent more per dose than they do in other markets. For example, J&J priced their vaccine at $10 USD, compared to only $8.50 in the European Union. Likewise, Pfizer set their price at $10, but charged the African Union only $6.75. (J&J deny these figures, because of course they do.) According to the World Health Organization, there have been 102,595 deaths from COVID-19 in South Africa, begging the question: how many were preventable, if not for corporate greed?
CROOKS vs. SICKOS (or, “What’s going on with our politicians?”)
❧ The world’s most indicted man is in legal trouble again, as a federal judge has found Donald Trump liable in a second defamation suit brought against him by E. Jean Carroll. Carroll, a longtime staff writer for Elle magazine, alleged in her 2019 memoir What Do We Need Men For? that Trump had sexually assaulted her in a department-store dressing room in the 1990s. In response, Trump said that Carroll’s book “belongs in the fiction section,” that it was “an absolute disgrace that she’s allowed to do that,” and that she was “not my type,” among other repulsive statements. Now, Manhattan Judge Lewis Kaplan has found that Trump’s comments—essentially calling Carroll a liar—were made with “actual malice,” and were defamatory in the same way as those in a previous case won by Carroll. When Trump’s civil trial is held, a jury will decide only what damages he must pay. It should be noted that Trump has repeatedly bragged and joked about committing sexual misconduct, and has been accused of doing so by at least 26 women since the 1970s, so this result is hardly surprising. If anything, it’s long overdue.
❧ Good morning…Friday morning! The interminable political career of Nancy Pelosi will have another chapter to it. The 83-year-old former House Speaker announced today that she plans to run for re-election again in 2024. In Current Affairs, we’ve argued as far back as 2019 that Pelosi was a terrible party leader, who’s arguably done more than any other Democrat to pander to corporate interests and stymie the Green New Deal and Medicare for All from becoming party priorities. Since then, she has gone on to wax poetic about the need to have “a strong Republican party,” even as that party has proven ruthlessly effective at dismantling the priorities she claims to stand for. That she is still exerting influence over the Democratic Party at this late stage of her career speaks to what a lifeless husk it currently is.
NARWHAL FACT OF THE DAY
Untangling the mystery of our beloved undersea unicorn…
The narwhal’s signature tusk is actually a long tooth. In fact, this pointy protuberance, which can grow to be eight feet long, is the narwhal’s only tooth! Narwhals don’t chew on the things they eat—which include Greenland halibut, Arctic and polar cod, squid, and shrimp. Instead, they are suction feeders, who inhale their food and swallow it whole.
So what is the narwhal’s horn for? For a long time, this question has flummoxed scientists, and numerous theories abound:
Some say they are for jousting with one another (though nobody has ever actually documented this).
Their flexible, pulpy interior has led some scientists to conclude that they function as sensory organs meant to detect water temperature, water pressure, particle gradients and motion.
Others say it is used to break through thick Arctic sea ice.
One recent study says that they may function as indicators of sexual virility, much like peacock feathers or elk antlers (in other words, they are designed to make female narwhals horny).
It’s not for impaling prey (despite what the famous YouTube song about them says, narwhals are not the “inventors of the shish kebab.”) However, there have been instances recorded in which narwhals have used their horns to bonk unsuspecting fish and stun them, so they can be eaten.
Perhaps this is one of those questions about nature we’re not meant to answer definitively. Until we finally learn the truth (which might not happen until we develop the capability to communicate with narwhals and ask them) we should just revel in the fact that the ocean is filled with unicorns for some reason and take it as evidence that we are loved.
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.
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