Sunday, January 12, 2020

French transport strike drags on despite govt compromise on pensions

A PROPOSAL IS JUST THAT UNTIL AGREED ON

AND SIGNED
Marie-Pierre FEREY, AFP•January 12, 2020

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Demonstrators took to the streets in their thousands again on Saturday to protest against the French government's pension reform plans (AFP Photo/Loic VENANCE)

Paris (AFP) - A crippling French transport strike dragged into its 39th day on Sunday despite the government's offer to withdraw the most contested measure of the pension reform plans that sparked the protest.

Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said Saturday he would drop plans to increase the official age for a full pension to 64 from 62 in an effort to end a strike which has paralysed Paris and its suburbs, with bus, train and metro services all badly disrupted.

French President Emmanuel Macron called the change "a constructive and responsible compromise".

Philippe late Sunday called on the unions to take "responsibility".

"Those who incite (the strikers) to continue the strike are leading them perhaps into a dead end... I think that they need to assume their responsibilities," Philippe said in a television interview.

The more reformist trade unions -- the FDT, Unsa and FRC -- welcomed the compromise announcement and said they were now ready to work with employers on the sustainable financing of the state pension system.

The Unsa union for national railway workers maintained its strike call on Sunday while recognising the government's reconciliatory move.

The union "remains on strike " but will return to the negotiating table, secretary general Didier Mathis told AFP.

However, the more hardline CGT, FO and Solidaires unions were standing firm, calling for the strike and protests to continue, including a major demonstration on January 16.

- 'Some want to return to work' -

French rail operator the SNCF said it expected services to improve on Monday.

Nine of 10 high-speed TGV trains would run on French and international routes, it said -- and commuters in and around Paris could expect seven out of 10 trains to operate.

CGT head Philippe Martinez played down the impact of the CFDT and Unsa's readiness to resume negotiations, and spoke of internal splits within these groups.

"We will see" what these unions' workers have to say on the issue, he said, reiterating his call for the government to withdraw the pension reforms completely which he described as "the major requirement of a majority of unions representing a majority of employees".

However the financial hit is weakening the resolve of some strikers.

"It is clear that some colleagues want to go back to work," said one disillusioned Paris Metro worker during demonstrations on Saturday.

"It's going to get tricky financially," he added.

Private sector workers have not followed the unions' lead on the stoppage to turn the campaign into a true national strike.

The government was adamant that the strikers should now go back to work.

"There is no longer any reason for this strike movement to continue," said Elisabeth Borne, minister in charge of transport.

- 'We're still here' -

The government's compromise move came a day after meetings with unions in a bid to end a strike that has frustrated Paris commuters, ruined December holiday travel plans, and hurt business.

Demonstrators in the capital on Saturday, some masked and hooded, broke shop windows along their protest route, set fires and threw projectiles at police in riot gear who responded with tear gas.

Several stores were ransacked as marchers brandished union flags and chanted defiantly: "We are still here!" and "Macron resign!"

Protests were also held in Marseille, Toulouse, Lyon, Nantes and several other cities.

The interior ministry said 149,000 people had turned out throughout France.

The CGT put the figure at half a million, saying the 150,000 marched in Paris alone.

- 'Pivot age' -

In one of Macron's signature reforms, the government is seeking to rationalise 42 existing pension schemes into a single, points-based system it says will be fairer and more transparent. Unions fear it will force millions to work longer for a smaller retirement payout.

Particularly controversial was the proposal to impose the 64 "pivot age" that people would have to work to in order to qualify for a full pension.

Union meetings Monday will decide on the future of the strikes on France's local and national rail services.

The government, employers and unions are also keeping their eyes on the opinion polls.

"Public opinion supports the strikers," Martinez insisted late Saturday.

The government has ruled out cutting pensions but insists that something must be done to boost funding as workers are living longer post-retirement.

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FORD NATION
Canada province says sorry after training mistake sparks false nuclear alert
NUCLEAR OPPS AND SOME FOLKS COULD CARE LESS

By David Ljunggren, Reuters•January 12, 2020

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Canada province says sorry after training mistake sparks false nuclear alert
The Pickering Nuclear Generating Station is seen in an undated aerial photo near Toronto

By David Ljunggren

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The Canadian province of Ontario on Sunday apologized for wrongly raising the alarm about an incident at a massive nuclear power station near Toronto and blamed a training exercise mistake.

Angry local mayors demanded an inquiry, saying the emergency message about the ageing Pickering plant had caused unnecessary distress.

At around 7:30 a.m. ET (1230 GMT) cell phone users across Ontario - the most populous of Canada's 10 provinces - received an alert about the supposed incident. Less than an hour later the Ontario Power Generation (OPG) authority said the message had been a mistake.

"The alert was issued in error to the public during a routine training exercise," Ontario's Solicitor-General Sylvia Jones said in a statement.

"The government of Ontario sincerely apologizes for raising public concern and has begun a full investigation to determine how this error happened."

The initial message said there had been no abnormal leak of activity from the plant, which is located on the shores of Lake Ontario some 50 km (30 miles) east of downtown Toronto.

Pickering Mayor Dave Ryan said on Twitter that locals had been very troubled and added: "I have spoken to the province, and am demanding that a full investigation take place".

Toronto Mayor John Tory complained that many of the city's 3 million residents had been unnecessarily alarmed and also pushed for a probe, citing what he said were "far too many unanswered questions".

Human error during a training exercise was also blamed for an incident in Hawaii in January 2018 when authorities issued a false alert about an impending ballistic missile attack.

OPG was not immediately available for comment.

The plant came online in 1971 and has a power-generating capacity of 3,100 megawatts when fully active. It is scheduled to be shut down in 2024.

"OPG has reminded everyone that they're running an unneeded and aging nuclear station next to Toronto," said Shawn-Patrick Stensil, a program director at Greenpeace Canada.

Some social media users posted images from the hit cartoon series the Simpsons, which features a nuclear power plant plagued by safety violations.

Cam Guthrie, the mayor of Guelph, a city west of Toronto, said "sending out a 'hey there was an issue at a nuclear plant but we're not going to tell you about it specifically and it's not a big deal' emergency text, is terrible".

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Frances Kerry and Lisa Shumaker)

What Ontario can learn from Hawaii's false report of an imminent catastrophe

Ryan Flanagan CTVNews.ca Published Sunday, January 12, 2020

TORONTO -- Ontarians' reactions to an emergency alert stating there had been an incident at the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station ran the gamut from fear to confusion to – eventually – outrage.

Ted Gruetzner's first instinct was a little different. He was puzzled, yes, but he also had a strong suspicion that there was no cause for alarm.

"I have the luxury of knowing how these things work, and it struck me as something that [was] a little bit off," Gruetzner said Sunday on CTV News Channel.

Related Stories
Emergency alert about Ont. nuclear plant was sent by mistake
Nuclear power plant alert: People miffed about mistaken notification

Related Links
Study: Anxiety on Twitter following the 2018 Hawaii false missile alert

As a former vice-president of Ontario Power Generation – which operates the power plant in Pickering, Ont. – and someone still heavily focused on the energy sector through his work with the Global Public Affairs consulting firm, Gruetzner felt that the message didn't ring true.

Few of those who received the alert have Gruetzner's background and expertise, though. And for that group, Gruetzner says, it's not at all surprising that the message caused panic.

"You're going to want to make sure that you're getting your message very clear, giving clear direction on what people should worry about and what they should do – and I think that message wasn't very clear this morning," he said.

"It created a lot of uncertainty and unease."

Pickering Mayor Dave Ryan also spoke of the mental health impacts of the false alarm Sunday morning.

"This has a huge impact on our community as a whole – the obvious anxiety that is uncalled for," he said in an interview with CP24.

Anxiety, sometimes rising to the level of post-traumatic stress disorder, has been shown to increase following false alarms of imminent danger. One of the most notable such mishaps occurred almost exactly two years before Sunday's alert.

On Jan. 13, 2018, an emergency alert was automatically transmitted over every radio and TV signal in Hawaii, and sent to every phone in the state. The alert advised recipients to seek shelter and included an all-caps message declaring "NOT A DRILL."

It took 38 minutes for authorities to send a follow-up message stating that the initial alert was a false alarm.

That 38-minute gap was more than enough for Hawaiians' panic levels to shoot through the roof, according to a 2019 paper in the American Psychologist journal.

Researchers from the University of California scraped data from Twitter, examining more than 1.2 million tweets from 14,830 accounts believed to be based in Hawaii over a two-month span including the day of the false alarm.

By searching for keywords such as "worried" and "afraid," they found "a marked increase in anxiety among likely Hawaii residents that lingered well after the missile threat was dispelled," as Nickolas M. Jones and Roxane Cohen Silver wrote.

The anxiety levels climbed from the moment the alert was issued until Hawaiians received the follow-up false alarm message – even though the state's emergency management office and local politicians tweeted during that period that there was no real emergency. As one Twitter user put it, "who knows who's right?"

Days after it became clear there never had been a threat, the Twitter users who had been expressing the least anxiety before the alert continued to show a big increase in their anxiety levels. Those who had already displayed signs of anxiety, conversely, had stopped doing so – which Jones and Silver say could be a sign of "near-miss relief" or may mean that they had re-evaluated the things which caused them anxiety before the alert.

"Users in the high prealert anxiety group may have recognized how much worse things could have been had the missile threat been real," they wrote.

The researchers note that there are limitations to their findings: Twitter skews younger and more urban than the general population, word use is a very generalized way to track anxiety, and there is no guarantee every tweet they logged came from Hawaii.

Still, much of their study reads as if it could be a warning for the Ontario government in the wake of Sunday's erroneous alert, which the Ontario government has blamed on an accident during a "routine training exercise." Researchers warn that false alarms can erode the credibility of an organization and make people less inclined to believe future warnings. For example, a 2009 study found that residents of American areas with significant histories of false tornado alarms are less likely to trust the U.S. National Weather Service – and more likely to die when tornadoes do strike.

"When officials charged with disseminating information about impending threats falter, this might lead to a disaster … and there may be a number of unintended consequences," they wrote.

Jones and Silver did find some reasons for hope. They note that after a public trauma, anxiety levels tend to decrease as authorities and media explain exactly what has happened and what is being done to stop it from happening again.

"When emergency systems falter, research shows that credibility loss can be mitigated by a clear explanation of why the false alarm occurred in the first place," they wrote.

In Hawaii, that took the form of the state creating new safeguards to prevent one person from sending an emergency alert without approval. Media reports about past issues involving the employee who sent the alert "may have assured the public that the entire affair was a fluke," Jones and Silver wrote.

Gruetzner said he hoped to see similar public communications efforts in Ontario as the investigation into Sunday's false alarm unfolds.

"You don't want to create more questions than you answer with your communications," he said.

"People have to have faith in the system, and I think they're going to do what they can to address the problem."

Esper 'didn't see' intelligence on Iran's 'planned' attack on embassies

Secretary of Defense Mark Esper on Sunday said that he hadn't seen evidence to support President Trump’s claim that a prominent Iranian general killed by a U.S. airstrike was “actively planning” imminent attacks on four American embassies. He said that he “didn’t see” specific intelligence to support that assertion.

WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN A BLACK OP WAS A TRUMP OP AND HOW DID THAT WORK OUT

'Our Work Is Helping People Find Happiness.' Meet the Leftist Nuns Helping Migrants at the U.S.-Mexico Border

Lily Moore-Eissenberg, Time•January 7, 2020

On a sweltering morning in August, Sister Maria Antonia Aranda, a 60-year-old nun from Mexico, navigated her silver Ford Escape into a border checkpoint in Ciudad Juárez. She was dropping off two asylum-seekers who had hearings across the border that day, at the federal immigration court in El Paso. Fatima Rodriguez, a 19-year-old from Nicaragua who had been separated from her 5-year-old daughter by American authorities, anxiously texted her lawyer from the passenger seat. Her companion, a Salvadoran woman in her early 20s, sat in the back seat, adjusting and re-adjusting her waist-length hair. Her eyelids shone with silver glitter, a special touch for the occasion.

After Aranda parked, they all paused for a moment, as if to draw a collective breath. Then, at Aranda’s signal, they got out, walked to the entrance of the Lerdo International Bridge, and kissed each other’s cheeks. Aranda watched as the two young women each fed ten pesos—fifty American cents, the toll to cross by foot—into a turnstile. Within seconds, they disappeared into the crush of pedestrians bound for the U.S. Aranda hoped to God she would never see them again.

Over the past three years, priests, bishops, and Pope Francis have condemned U.S. immigration policy under the Trump Administration and entreated Catholics around the world to stand up for the rights of migrants. But along the U.S.-Mexico border, it’s women like Aranda—leftist Catholic nuns, most of them middle-aged or elderly and many of them first- or second-generation Americans—who have actually built a mass movement.

It began in the summer and fall of 2018, when the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR), an association of American nuns, publicized requests for volunteers and financial support—a “call to the border,” as many sisters describe it. Since then, more than 700 nuns from the organization’s 300 member congregations have volunteered their services, some traveling hundreds of miles to join sisters who already lived in border towns. Most of this new influx of nuns began work on the U.S. side of the border—in New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and California—but others, like Aranda, are scattered from Mexico to Honduras. And that’s only counting nuns whose congregations are American and LCWR members.

Nuns now occupy major leadership positions on the border: Sister Norma Pimentel, who has gained national recognition for her immigration advocacy, directs Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, and an Irish nun named Beatrice Donnellan runs a shelter for migrant women in El Paso. Some of the sisters have arrived at the border with no previous experience in immigration work, while others have already devoted their lives to it. Sister Gloria Rivera, a Detroit-based nun from Mexico, served as a translator in immigration court and directed a migrant shelter in Michigan before traveling to El Paso to volunteer in January 2019. The nuns’ congregations fund their travels largely on donations. Since the summer of 2018, congregations have given more than 1.5 million dollars to immigration-related nonprofits, according to the LCWR.

“The fact that these sisters are joining other members of their order, or other people with whom they’re networked, means they’re more able to avoid the pitfalls of the ignorant do-gooder,” said Eileen Markey, author of A Radical Faith, a biography on the political transformation of nuns in Latin America. “They’re connected to people who are embedded and who have a long-term perspective. In many cases, they have backgrounds in Central America or on the border.” She added, “In some ways, it’s like a return.”

Many of the nuns working at the border today are in their 60s, 70s, and 80s. They bring a work ethic and philosophy shaped by their own experiences living under Central American dictatorships in the 1980s, when more than a million Central Americans fleeing civil wars in the Northern Triangle sought refuge in the U.S. At the time, hundreds of nuns were living in the conflict zones and sheltering refugees who had been denied asylum by the Reagan administration. The so-called sanctuary movement of the 1980s and today’s religious movement to support migrant rights at the U.S. border are similar, says Amanda Izzo, a professor at Saint Louis University who studies religious feminism and liberal Christianity. “Both come out of the same impulse: people groping towards critiques of structural forms of power,” she says. “It’s small groups of people in impoverished places thinking about what the stories of the Gospel can mean in the context of their lives.”

In 2018 and 2019, waves of Catholic sisters showed up in Juárez and El Paso, bringing laundry detergent, baby wipes, duffel bags of second-hand clothes, and a powerful concept of what it means to serve God: Catholic liberation theology. The leftist strand of Catholicism first bloomed in Latin America under the dictatorships of the 1970s and 80s and has enjoyed a resurgence since Pope Francis, a follower of liberation theology, became the first Latino pope in 2013. The philosophy, which encourages a broad-based, deeply historical understanding of modern problems, advocates for radical egalitarianism and the liberation of the poor from oppressive political and economic systems.

Nuns have traditionally enjoyed very little formal power in the Catholic Church—they are not allowed to become priests and are excluded from most leadership roles. But they have became some of Catholicism’s most vigorous, progressive, and accessible representatives on the ground. “Women religious do not have the authority that men do in the church,” said Izzo, the Saint Louis University professor, but “they’ve carved out these places of autonomy.” For nuns who follow liberation theology, economic and social equality have become priorities on par with religious conversion and worship.

“They are radicalized because of their experiences,” said Margaret McGuinness, a professor at La Salle University who studies the history of American nuns. “They’re not just saying ‘Let’s help the poor,’ but ‘Why are these people poor?’”

For many leftist nuns, the most important answer to that question is neither Central American gang violence nor the Trump administration’s immigration policies. Their answer, derived from decades of experience, tends to be more historical: people are poor because of systemic inequalities between groups, states, and hemispheres. Sister Beatrice Donnellan argues that American economic interests and military interventions in Latin America in the 1980s are chiefly responsible for the economic and political instability driving migration to the U.S. today. Aranda often cites the Bible: “Starting from Genesis, we’re talking about migration, no? The people of Israel, the Hebrews, they walked through the desert,” she said. “We can talk about Leviticus, who invites us not to oppress foreigners. Matthew speaks of love for the needy. ‘I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you stayed with me.’”

A former engineer, Aranda decided to become a nun in her 40s. She took her final religious vows at age 50 and expected to spend the rest of her life tending to the needs of her local community—working with couples on their marriages, teaching children to read biblical stories into their own experiences, leading a humble and just life in accordance with the egalitarian values of liberation theology. But then, last January, Aranda heard that a local priest named Francisco García had begun taking in migrants under the newly-implemented Migrant Protection Protocols, also called the “Remain in Mexico” policy. She drove to the church to offer help.

Even at that point, the church’s capacity to house migrants was stretched, and García was beginning to feel overwhelmed. While the local community supported the migrants, they also needed the church to perform baptisms, communions, weddings, funerals, and weekly services. The congregation needed its priest, so García asked Aranda to help care for the couple dozen migrants already living in his church, particularly the women, who feared for their safety on the streets. Aranda accepted, not yet fully grasping what that meant. Between January and August, the migrant population in Juárez swelled from a couple hundred people to more than ten thousand, and Aranda was swamped. She began spending her days shuttling migrants to and from medical appointments, law offices, and border checkpoints, eventually earning the nickname Hermana Uber.

“It’s distressing to not have the human and material resources to assist them all,” Aranda says, speaking in Spanish. “More than tiredness, though, is a feeling of despair, anguish, helplessness because of the failure of governments to negotiate better immigration policies.” Recently, she has observed an increase in migrants from southern Mexico as well as from Central America, putting additional strain on the city’s shelters. “But knowing that the migrants are joining their families is always a great joy and satisfaction,” she added. “Knowing that, in some way, our work is helping other people find happiness.”

Many of the women that Aranda works with have faced gender-based violence in their home countries. Since 2018, when the Justice Department eliminated domestic and gang violence as grounds for asylum—a decision that disproportionately affected women—the rate of asylum approvals for Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala plummeted by nearly ten percentage points, according to the advocacy organization Human Rights First. When migrant women arrive at the U.S.-Mexico border, many are then forced to remain in Juárez, a city known for femicide. In 2015, at the peak of the violence, an average of six women were killed each day in Juárez, and the United Nations called the femicide a “pandemic.”

The day before she dropped off Fatima Rodriguez at the border, Aranda found her in a small meeting house beside the church, sitting with a friend on benches painted the color of robin eggs. “Hola, Madre,” Rodriguez said, addressing the nun with a traditional term of respect—“Mother”—that the equality-minded Aranda has never gotten used to.

Rodriguez, an activist, fled political violence in Nicaragua after the government started arresting and killing college students like herself for protesting. American authorities separated Rodriguez from her daughter in May because Rodriguez’s parents’ names, not her own, were listed on her daughter’s birth certificate, she explains. (When Rodriguez was a teenager, the family made this arrangement for her protection, after she became pregnant as a result of a rape, she says.) When she arrived at the border, U.S. officials sent her daughter to a shelter and then a foster family in New York City, and returned Rodriguez to Mexico, she says.

Rodriguez was one of the earliest arrivals at the church, which regularly houses people from El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Cuba. She quickly learned how to navigate the politics of floor space and food. In group therapy sessions, led by a psychologist Aranda recruited, she held ice in her hands until it melted in order to build psychological endurance and practice calming her mind. She narrated her traumas often, for American journalists Aranda brought to the shelter and for an American judge in El Paso. She drank cheap soda and texted her family from the blue benches.

Rodriguez’s story ends more happily than most of the stories Aranda steps into. With the help of a lawyer that Aranda knew, Rodriguez proved that she was her daughter’s mother, and a U.S. immigration court judge decided to allow her to wait in the U.S. with her daughter for her asylum hearing.

A few days after Aranda dropped Rodriguez at the border, over a breakfast of salted avocados and hard-boiled eggs, Aranda played a song on the guitar called El Puente, or The Bridge. “Never mind that the pain of a thousand footsteps leaves bloody footprints on it…Lord, make that bridge not break,” she sang, in Spanish. She told me, “Any people can be like the people of Israel. Any person, too, who walks through the desert looking for a better life.”

A week later, Aranda heard the news from one of the secretaries at the shelter: Rodriguez had made it to New York City.

“I only ask God to continue helping her,” Aranda told me. As for the thousands of others still waiting to cross the border: “They speak of leaving a place where they were stripped of their homes and where their relatives were killed,” Aranda said. “They no longer speak of the American dream.”

This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Sister Maria Antonia Aranda in the Juárez church where she works with migrants. | Courtesy of Lily Moore-Eissenberg

Sister Beatrice Donnellan talks with a pair of visitors dropping off donations at Casa Vides in El Paso, Texas in August 2019. | Courtesy of Lily Moore-Eissenberg

Sister Caroline Sweeney, a volunteer, makes calls to the families of recent arrivals in Casa Vides in El Paso, Texas in August 2019. | Courtesy of Lily Moore-Eissenberg

San Juan Apostol Evangelista church, where Sister Maria Antonia Aranda works, doubles as a migrant shelter in Juárez, see here in August 2019. | Courtesy of Lily Moore-Eissenberg

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s New PAC Is Already Raising Big Money

Daniel Marans, HuffPost•January 12, 2020

New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s new political action committee raised over $69,000 on Saturday, its first day of public fundraising, showcasing her influence amid a feud with senior House Democrats.

Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign, which shared in the proceeds from email and Twitter fundraising appeals for the PAC, also raked in about $100,000 on Saturday according to official data that Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign shared with HuffPost.

On its own, the PAC, Courage to Change, received over 4,600 donations, as of late Saturday night, in amounts that averaged under $15.

“It’s a very exciting launch,” Ocasio-Cortez campaign spokesman Corbin Trent said. “When I see so many people stand up and say they are ready to change not just D.C., but the country, it fills me with hope.”

Ocasio-Cortez launched Courage to Change to support both progressive incumbent Democrats and primary challengers whose positions are close to her own. (She has thus far endorsed progressives taking on conservative Democratic Reps. Henry Cuellar of Texas and Dan Lipinski of Illinois.)

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) is building an independent political operation capable of competing with the Democratic Party establishment. (Photo: ANGELA WEISS/AFP/Getty Images)

In two fundraising emails and a tweet, Ocasio-Cortez and her campaign framed the PAC explicitly as an alternative to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which is House Democrats’ official campaign fundraising arm.

“We’re paving a different path,” her campaign wrote in the first fundraising email. “The DCCC has been an entrenched tool in a system that blocks working-class candidates from running for office, and protects out of touch incumbents.”

Although she is a fundraising powerhouse, Ocasio-Cortez has refused to pay $250,000 in dues that the DCCC asks of members of the House Democratic Caucus over a two-year period. In the 2020 election, the DCCC plans to use those funds to protect the Democratic majority in the House and pick up Republican-held seats.

And on Friday, several of her Democratic colleagues, including Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, ripped her abstention from the process in a story on Fox News’ website. (Meeks succeeded former Rep. Joe Crowley, whom Ocasio-Cortez ousted, as head of the Queens County Democratic Party and supported a candidate running against the one Ocasio-Cortez backed for Queens district attorney.)

Ocasio-Cortez defended the decision ― as she has done in the past ― on the grounds that she has raised $300,000 for incumbent members directly, half of them in swing seats, and that she takes issue with the DCCC’s policy of blacklisting consultants and other groups that work with primary challengers.

For Ocasio-Cortez, who got to the House through a successful primary run against an incumbent, the fight has a personal quality.

“I don’t see the sense in giving a quarter-million dollars to an organization that has clearly told people like me that we’re not welcome,” she told Fox News.

Ocasio-Cortez is taking steps to mount an independent political operation capable of rivaling the establishment party organs with which she has jousted. The mere creation of a PAC to support other candidates ― an entity commonly known as a “leadership PAC” ― is typically the type of endeavor limited to members of party leadership or other seasoned members of Congress.

The PAC expands her reach in more tangible ways as well. A PAC allows her to contribute a larger figure to candidates than she otherwise would be able to give. Candidates can give only up to $2,000 a year from their own campaign to another candidate per election cycle, but PACs can contribute up to $5,000 per election cycle. Since the primary and the general elections are considered separate cycles, she can transfer $10,000 to a candidate from the start of a primary to the close of a general election.

The legal structure of a PAC also allows her political operation to coordinate directly with a campaign for whatever purposes it wishes.

Ocasio Cortez: I don’t think the blacklisting of progressive organizations is fair

FOX News Videos•January 11,2020

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defends decision not to pay House Democratic campaign 'dues'

Jeanine Santucci, USA TODAY,
USA TODAY•January 10, 2020

Freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defended her decision not to donate money to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in protest of a policy to "blacklist" organizations that back Democratic candidates running against incumbents.

"I give quite a bit to fellow Dems - we’ve fundraised over $300,000 for others (more than my 'dues'), w/ over 50% going to swing seats," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted on Friday.

"DCCC made clear that they will blacklist any org that helps progressive candidates like me," she said. "I can choose not to fund that kind of exclusion."

The New York congresswoman was reacting to an article by Fox News, which reported that some fellow House Democrats were upset with her decision not to pay the $250,000 dues. It also noted that there were 97 Democrats who hadn't paid as of records from October, but that more may have paid up before the end of the year.

The DCCC is the campaign arm of House Democrats. It made its policy official last year that it would not do business with vendors that work with Democratic caucus members' opponents. Ocasio-Cortez won her race in an upset over longtime incumbent former Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley in 2018.

How dues work: 'Extortion' or team effort? Lawmaker perspectives from 2016

The DCCC website says its mission is to "support Democratic House candidates every step of the way to fortify and expand our new Democratic Majority." The DCCC assigns fundraising amounts to congress members based on their levels of leadership and committee assignments, and money is used to boost Democratic members in contested races.

Lawmakers can meet these quotas by either fundraising for the DCC or donating from their own campaign, though meeting the quotas isn't mandatory.

“Sometimes the question comes: 'Do you want to be in a majority or do you want to be in the minority?'” Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., said of Ocasio-Cortez, according to Fox News. “And do you want to be part of a team?"

Ocasio-Cortez says that she's not the only one who doesn't pay the dues. She said she wants to raise money for progressive candidates by "putting it straight into their pocket," according to Fox News. She raised more than any other House Democrat in the third quarter of 2019, according to reports.

“I’m happy to support some incumbents, but it’s not just a blanket rule," she added.

I give quite a bit to fellow Dems - we’ve fundraised over $300,000 for others (more than my “dues”), w/ over 50% going to swing seats.

DCCC made clear that they will blacklist any org that helps progressive candidates like me. I can choose not to fund that kind of exclusion. https://t.co/qqwdwPAqek
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) January 10, 2020

"Expanding a House majority is critical, which is why I regularly (and happily) fundraise sizeable amounts for fellow members. I also believe that a Dem majority should be transformative, which is why I give strategically. Seems fair, no?" Ocasio-Cortez said.

This isn't the first time she's been critical of the DCCC. Last year, Ocasio-Cortez called on her supporters to "pause" donations to the DCCC in response to the policy.

"The @DCCC’s new rule to blacklist+boycott anyone who does business w/ primary challengers is extremely divisive & harmful to the party," Ocasio-Cotez tweeted in March. "My recommendation, if you’re a small-dollar donor: pause your donations to DCCC & give directly to swing candidates instead."

Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley, another freshman Democrat part of the progressive group of congresswomen of color dubbed "the Squad," also criticized the DCCC at the time.

"The fact that I challenged an incumbent meant a lot of folks were told not to come anywhere near my campaign. But I was lucky to build a dynamic, innovative team of staff & consultants who understood the challenges our campaign faced, and who were willing to take a risk," Pressley said.

The policy risked "undermining an entire universe of potential candidates and vendors - especially women and people of color - whose ideas, energy, and innovation need a place in our party," Pressley said.

AOC: 'In any other country, Joe Biden and I would not be in the same party'

For its part, the DCCC has raised $125 million in 2019, surpassing its record for a non-election year, according to CNN. Its chairwoman, Cheri Bustos, told Fox News that paying the dues is "always up to individual members."

"We’re raising record amounts of money from our members," Bustos said.

Ocasio-Cortez has criticized the Democratic Party as being "too big of a tent," and set herself apart ideologically from more moderate members, saying that they would not be part of the same political party were it not for the United States' two-party system.

She has endorsed Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., for president.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez defends her decision not to pay DCCC 'dues'

Ocasio Cortez: I don’t think the blacklisting of progressive organizations is fair

FOX News Videos•January 11,2020

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Mexico Is Doing the U.S.'s 'Dirty Work,' Say Researchers as Border Apprehensions Decline for 7th Month in a Row

Jasmine Aguilera,Time•January 10, 2020

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced Thursday that apprehensions at the U.S. Mexico border — a figure generally considered the most accurate measure of migrants who have attempted to enter the U.S. — have decreased for the seventh consecutive month. But immigration experts and advocates say that trend is likely the result of a crackdown on migration by the Mexican government.

According to data released Thursday, 32,858 people were apprehended at the border in December 2019, including unaccompanied children, family units and adults who traveled alone. That’s a decline from the previous month that saw 33,511 apprehensions. An additional 7,762 were deemed “inadmissible” by CBP in December — which researchers say is how asylum seekers are counted by the agency — totaling 40,620 enforcement actions last month. Though numbers have steadily decreased since May 2019, apprehensions for fiscal year 2019 overall were still nearly double the year before.

CBP Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan in a public statement Thursday said that the decline is “a direct result of President Trump’s network of policy initiatives and our ability to effectively enforce the law, enhance our border security posture and properly care for those in custody.” However, border and migration experts tell TIME the reality is much more complex and is likely the result of action taken by the Mexican government, which has acted out of pressure from the Trump Administration to curb northward migration.

This is the leading reason why apprehension numbers have declined, says Josiah Heyman, professor of anthropology and director of the Center for Interamerican and Border Studies at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP).

“Probably a limited amount of credit — or blame — should go to the U.S. treatment of people at the border and U.S. border policy,” Heyman says. “A larger amount of the credit or blame should go to the country of Mexico doing the dirty work of the United States.”

A series of policies since the start of the Trump Administration has aimed to deter asylum claims and unauthorized migration to the U.S., including a Zero Tolerance policy that separated thousands of parents from their children. But migrants fleeing violence and poverty continued attempting to reach the U.S. border, say researchers who spoke to TIME. What has changed is their ability to reach the border.

The Mexican government — under pressure by the U.S. — has stepped up enforcement of immigration laws, resulting in the the country deploying its recently formed Mexican National Guard. The force has sometimes violently prevented migrants from arriving at the U.S. border, according to accounts my multiple Mexican media outlets. The National Guard and the Mexico office of Security and Civilian Protection did not immediately return TIME’s request for comment.

In July, U.S. President Andrés Manuel López Obrador thanked Trump for acknowledging Mexico’s efforts, according to Reuters. “I am grateful that even President Trump is making it known that Mexico is fulfilling its commitment and that there are no threats of tariffs,” Lopez Obrador said.

Mexican National Guard members prevent Central American migrants from crossing the Rio Bravo, in Ciudad Juarez, State of Chihuahua, #Mexico. #AFP 📸 Herika Martinez pic.twitter.com/x4NGkspYIP

— AFPMexico (@AFPMexico) June 21, 2019

CBP did not immediately respond to TIME’s request for comment.

In June, Mexico announced plans to deploy thousands of National Guard forces to the northern border, and an additional 6,000 to its southern border with Guatemala in response to a threat by the Trump Administration to impose tariffs on Mexican exports to the U.S., a move that likely could have devastated the Mexican economy.

“Mexico is completely economically vulnerable to the United States,” Heyman says. “We threatened Mexico with economic disaster, and Mexico has moved in the direction of doing whatever the United States wants.”

Jeremy Slack, an assistant professor of geography in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at UTEP who primarily studies deportation, also believes Mexico’s involvement is the leading cause of decline.

“We didn’t see a major difference in terms of what’s going on in Central America,” Slack tells TIME. “Short answer. One hundred percent, the reason for the decline is related to Mexico’s use of the National Guard to stop people traversing Mexico.”

On Friday, DHS Acting Secretary Chad Wolf spoke to reporters in Yuma, Ariz., and acknowledged Mexico’s work to combat migration northward. He called Mexico’s actions “unprecedented.”

Another policy, known as “metering,” has resulted in thousands of asylum seekers waiting in Mexico for their turn to claim asylum at a U.S. port of entry — they have not been counted in CBP’s apprehension or inadmissible statics, according to Heyman and Slack. At least an additional 56,000 have already claimed asylum but have been returned to Mexico to wait for their court proceedings.

Central Americans have also not stopped attempting to migrate north, according to Jason De León, a professor of anthropology and Chicana/o and Central American studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, who is also the director of the Undocumented Migration Project, a long-term study of unauthorized border crossing. “We have made it more dangerous to cross Mexico, and much more expensive, and we’ve prolonged the process, but people are still very much coming,” he says.

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Hundreds mourn reporters shot dead after covering Iraq protests

AFP•January 10, 2020

Hundreds marched through Basra carrying symbolic coffin

and pictures of the slain Iraqi reporters

(AFP Photo/Hussein FALEH)More

LOOKS LIKE THOUSANDS TO ME

Basra (Iraq) (AFP) - Hundreds of Iraqis on Saturday mourned two reporters shot dead the previous evening in the country's southern city of Basra, where they had been covering months of anti-government protests.

Ahmad Abdessamad, a 37-year-old correspondent for local television station Al-Dijla, and his cameraman Safaa Ghali, 26, were killed late Friday, the Journalistic Freedoms Observatory (JFO) said.

Hundreds marched through the streets of Basra carrying symbolic coffins, their pictures and Iraqi flags.

One mourner told AFP: "What happened was an attempt to scare people. But now, everyone in Basra has come out to mourn Ahmad and his colleague Safaa. It was clearly an attempt to silence people."

The two reporters were in a car near a police station in Basra when armed men in a 4x4 approached them and opened fire.

"Armed men attacked them and sprayed them with bullets on Friday night, which killed Abdessamad. His cameraman was taken to the city hospital, where he died," the JFO said in a statement.

It said that two weeks before he died, Abdessamad had sent the JFO video testimony about "threats he received from militias because of his criticism of Iran in his coverage."

Demonstrations erupted in October in Iraq's capital and across its Shiite-majority south, railing against government graft and a lack of jobs.

The protests have also slammed neighbouring Iran for economic and political overreach in Iraq and for propping up a ruling class reviled by demonstrators.

As the protests drag on, activists have complained of a growing campaign of intimidation, including assassinations, kidnappings and threats, meant to keep them from the rallies.

Around a dozen activists have been shot dead and are among the more than 460 people killed in protest-related violence since October.

The rallies had been overshadowed in recent weeks by rising tensions between the US and Iran but protesters revived them on Friday, including in Basra, where some demonstrators were arrested.

The Iraqi Journalists' Union demanded Basra's police conclude a speedy investigation so that "the criminals be brought to justice".

The Committee to Protect Journalists, meanwhile, condemned the killing and urged Iraqi authorities to do more to protect reporters covering the movement.

"No journalist should have to fear for their safety or be singled out for attack over their coverage of protests," said the CPJ's regional representative Ignacio Miguel Delgado.

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PERMANENT WAR ECONOMY

The German Bundeswehr's missions in the Middle East
Germany has temporarily removed some troops out of Iraq due to escalating tensions following the killing of Iran's Qassem Soleimani. DW looks at the German armed forces' missions in the region.

The German military deployment to the Middle East began in 2015, following the growth of Islamic State (IS) as a threat. The Bundeswehr carries out a non-combat support mission known as "Capacity Building Iraq/Counter Daesh," referring to IS by its Arabic name.

Despite having two names, Capacity Building Iraq/Counter Daesh became one mission in 2018. It contributes to the combat-focused US-led Combined Joint Task Force- Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR), which is made up of 60 participating countries aiming to defeat IS.

Germany has a total of around 500 troops stationed across Jordan, Iraq and Syria, according to official figures, with this number allowed to grow to 700 German soldiers in the region.

Capacity Building Iraq/Counter Daesh is set to wrap up this year. Due to the different start dates the operation will finish six months apart from each other with Capacity Building Iraq set to finish on October 31 and Counter Daesh on March 31 2020.

German forces carry out training in Erbil, in northern Iraq

Iraq: 'Capacity Building Iraq'

There are around 130 military service personnel in Iraq, 32 of which were stationed in Taji. On Tuesday, those 32 were flown to Jordan temporarily. Three more soldiers, who were based in Iraq, were flown to Kuwait.

Read more: How does Germany contribute to NATO?

A further 90 are stationed in the north of the country in the Kurdish area around Erbil, where they focus on training to build a stable military force in the region. It is separate from the similar, non-combat NATO Mission Iraq (NMI).

An army on the ropes — What will happen to the Bundeswehr?

Jordan: 'Counter Daesh'

The Counter Daesh operation was originally based in Incirlik, southern Turkey, before being moved to Al-Azraq in Jordan in summer 2017. There are currently four Tornado jets and an A400M air-to-air refueler at the Jordanian airbase. Until September 2019, an Airbus A310 Multi-Role Tanker Transport (MRTT) was also deployed to the region.

Both the German operations in Jordan and Iraq are led from there. The Al-Azraq airbase is currently home to 280 German soldiers. For the military personnel stationed there, activities include working with the US-led joint task force in the region, carrying out operations as part of the US's Operation Inherent Resolve.

Germany conducts its Middle East operation from Al-Azraq airbase in Jordan

German soldiers contribute to the US-led mission, carrying out air-based reconnaissance, supporting missions through air-to-air refueling, and swapping and comparing site-information with other members of the Anti-IS coalition.

Read more: US military in Germany: What you need to know

The soldiers also carry out sea and airspace surveillance and participate in NATO's Airborne Early Warning and Control System in the region.

Kuwait

Currently, there is no known German base in the country, but Kuwait is home to the headquarters for the US-led Combined Joint Task Force fighting IS. Three German soldiers based in Baghdad were moved there temporarily on Tuesday.

Lebanon

Elsewhere in the region, Germany has been active since 1978 in the UN marine mission for peace between Lebanon and Israel, UNIFIL. Currently, Germany has around 150 soldiers stationed off the coast of Lebanon on board the German corvette "Ludwigshafen am Rhein." The troops are currently in the region together with mariners from Brazil, Greece, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Turkey. The mission is currently focused on stemming the illegal weapons trade in the region.

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US elections 2020

'It means you're going to lose': Bernie Sanders answers Trump on rise in polls

President ponders success of ‘Crazy Bernie’ in Democratic race

Martin Pengelly @MartinPengelly Sun 12 Jan 2020

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders speaks at ‘The People’s Caucus: Vote Truth to Power’ in Davenport, Iowa, on Sunday. Photograph: Andrew Harnik/AP

Bernie Sanders had a curt response for Donald Trump on Sunday, after the president noted the Vermont senator’s strong showing in the Democratic primary race and asked: “So what does this all mean?”

“It means you’re going to lose,” Sanders tweeted back.

The 78-year-old democratic socialist has rebounded from a heart attack last year, climbing polls of the Democratic field as the Iowa caucuses approach. In the realclearpolitics.com average for that state, which kicks off the primary on 3 February, Sanders leads former South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg by 21.3% to 21%.

In the same site’s average for New Hampshire, second to vote on 11 February, he leads former vice-president Joe Biden by 21.5% to 18.8%.

Biden leads the national average by nine points and had a boost in a Washington Post poll of African American voters released on Saturday, which put him 28 points ahead of Sanders nationally with that key voting bloc.

Changing tack after a screed of complaint about his looming impeachment trial, Trump tweeted on Sunday: “Wow! Crazy Bernie Sanders is surging in the polls, looking very good against his opponents in the Do Nothing Party. So what does this all mean? Stay tuned!”

In keeping his reply short and choosing not to tune into the abusive nickname the president has given him, Sanders had a little more success than House speaker Nancy Pelosi, who Trump earlier called “Crazy Nancy”.

Pelosi told ABC: “It’s Sunday morning. I’d like to talk about some more pleasant subjects than the erratic nature of this president ... but he has to know that every knock from him is a boost.

“I don’t like to spend too much time on his crazy tweets, because everything he says is a projection. When he calls someone crazy, he knows that he is.”

If Trump’s tweet about Sanders was a projection of his fear of defeat in November, it may be that the president’s campaign team do not share it.

Speaking to the Guardian this weekend, Republican strategist turned Trump critic Rick Wilson said Sanders was the GOP’s “dream opponent”.

Sanders, Wilson said, was “the easiest person in the world to turn into the comic opera villain Republicans love to hate, the Castro sympathiser, the socialist, the Marxist, the guy who wants to put the aristos in the tumbril as they cart them off to the guillotine”.

Billionaire Tom Steyer defends place in Iowa Democratic debate

Wilson also compared Sanders to Jeremy Corbyn, the British Labour party leader who lost a general election in December to Boris Johnson, “a very unlikeable PM [who] was able to convince a lot of Brits his opponent was too much of a risk.”

Sanders and his supporters show little sign of such concern. On Saturday, at slightly greater length, the senator tweeted: “Recently, our campaign has been the target of attacks from Trump and the Republican party – because they are catching on that our campaign is THE campaign that can and will defeat them.”

Realclearpolitics.com also runs polling averages matching Democrats with Trump in notional general elections. On Sunday, it gave Sanders victory by 2.6 points, 47.8% to 45.2%.

In the same average, Biden leads Trump by 4.5 points while Trump nudges out Warren by 0.2% and Buttigieg by a little over a point.

How to dump Trump: Rick Wilson on Running Against the Devil

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Rising in the polls, Sanders takes jabs from Trump, Warren

ALEXANDRA JAFFE,Associated Press•January 12, 2020

MARSHALLTOWN, Iowa (AP) — Bernie Sanders found himself on the receiving end of attacks from both President Donald Trump and Elizabeth Warren on Sunday, a reflection of his rising status in the Democratic presidential race and perceived momentum just three weeks out from the Iowa caucuses.

In a tweet, Trump declared, “Wow! Crazy Bernie Sanders is surging in the polls, looking very good against his opponents in the Do Nothing Party. So what does this all mean? Stay tuned!” Sanders responded in the same medium: “It means you’re going to lose.”

But it was Warren — who has generally avoided criticizing her fellow progressive over the course of the Democratic primary — who offered the sharpest criticism of the Vermont senator, saying she was “disappointed” by a report that the Sanders’ campaign is instructing its volunteers to speak negatively about her to win over undecided voters and suggesting he is too divisive to beat Trump.

“We cannot nominate someone who takes big chunks of the Democratic coalition for granted. We need someone who will bring our party together,” she told reporters after a campaign event in Iowa.
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“We need someone who will excite every part of the Democratic Party, someone who will be there, someone that every Democrat can believe in.”

Warren also warned against repeating “the factionalism of 2016,” during which the unexpected strength of Sanders’ challenge to Hillary Clinton’s candidacy produced a drawn-out and oftentimes nasty Democratic primary fight that some Democrats say contributed to Trump’s win.

Her comments come in response to a report in Politico revealing the Sanders campaign canvassing script suggests volunteers tell voters leaning towards Warren that “people who support her are highly-educated, more affluent people who are going to show up and vote Democratic no matter what” and that the senator is “bringing no new bases into the Democratic Party.”

The Warren campaign cited the Politico report in a fundraising appeal Sunday night.

Both Sanders and Warren, who are vying for the progressive lane in the primary and largely agree on many of the biggest issues in the race, have up until now publicly avoided attacking one another and in fact have been complimentary of each other.

In contrast, Sanders has in recent weeks been going aggressively after opponent Joe Biden for his support for the Iraq War and his trade policy.

While Biden has largely stayed mum on Sanders' attacks in recent days, Warren’s broadside sets the potential for a debate-stage clash in which he’ll likely be attacked by multiple opponents. The Vermont senator has been rising in a handful of state and national polls over the past month and is seen to have momentum heading into the final three weeks before the first nominating contest takes place in Iowa.

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment

Sunday, January 12, 2020

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