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Friday, June 11, 2021

Catholic bishops to send Indigenous delegation to meet Pope Francis on residential schools

Sean Boynton

GLOBAL NEWS

JUNE 11,2021

The national assembly of Catholic bishops in Canada is preparing to send a delegation of Indigenous people to the Vatican for a visit with Pope Francis to discuss Canada's residential school system and the role the Catholic church played

© VINCENZO PINTO/AFP via Getty Images Pope Francis arrives to lead his weekly general audience in the Paul VI hall at the Vatican on October 21, 2020.

In a statement Thursday, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops (CCCB) said it has been preparing a delegation for the past two years, but plans for the trip were delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The group said it now plans to send the delegation before the end of the year.

"This pastoral visit will include the participation of a diverse group of Elders/Knowledge Keepers, residential school survivors and youth from across the country," the CCCB said.

"The event will likewise provide Pope Francis with a unique opportunity to hear directly from Indigenous Peoples, express his heartfelt closeness, address the impact of colonization and the implication of the Church in the residential schools, so as to respond to the suffering of Indigenous Peoples and the ongoing effects of intergenerational trauma."

Bennett says Pope’s statement over residential schools ‘doesn’t go far enough’

Read more: Majority of Canadians say church to blame for residential school tragedies: poll

The Catholic church has faced renewed scrutiny over its participation in Canada's residential school system since the discovery of the bodies of 215 children in unmarked graves on the site of a former school in Kamloops, B.C.

On Sunday, Pope Francis said he is following news of the findings "with pain" and that he joined with Canada's bishops in "expressing my closeness to the Canadian people traumatized by the shocking news."

Yet he stopped short of apologizing for the church's role in running more than 60 per cent of Canada's residential schools from 1890 until 1969. The Catholic church as a whole has never issued a formal apology.

Some 150,000 First Nations, Metis and Inuit children were forcibly sent to residential schools, where many suffered abuse. Ongoing research by the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation shows at least 4,100 died in the schools amid neglect.

Pope expresses sorrow over residential school deaths, but no apology

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and First Nations across Canada have urged the church to apologize and to release records from the schools -- a call that has so far been met with what Trudeau on Friday called "resistance."

Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett on Monday said the Pope's statement "doesn't go far enough."

The CCCB said Thursday that it has "pledged true and deep commitment to renewing and strengthening relationships with Indigenous Peoples across the land," with the "strong encouragement" of Pope Francis.

The group said the delegation will represent "an important step on the journey of reconciliation and shared healing for Indigenous Peoples and the Church in Canada."

"It is our hope that these forthcoming encounters – and the important collaboration and partnership that has supported the planning – will lead to a shared future of peace and harmony between Indigenous Peoples and the Catholic Church in Canada," they said.

Read more: Catholic Church needs to ‘take responsibility’ for residential schools, Trudeau says

Church leaders have said the church did not have a unified role in the residential school system as it has a decentralized structure, meaning decisions are made by individual dioceses or orders.

Throughout the years, individual bishops have apologized for the role that different dioceses played in the residential school system. Vancouver's archbishop apologized following the discovery in Kamloops.

Richard Gagnon, president of the CCCB, expressed his ``sorrow for the heartrending loss of the children'' but offered no formal apology.

In 2018, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops announced the Pope could not personally apologize for residential schools, even though he has not shied away from recognizing injustices faced by Indigenous people around the world.

--With files from the Canadian Press

ARCHITECTURE OF REPRESSION

‘Monuments of oppression’ must be torn down to make room for healing, says OKIB chief

This article contains content about residential “school” that may be triggering. IndigiNews is committed to trauma-informed ethical reporting, which involves taking time and care, self-location, transparency and creating safety plans for those who come forward with stories to share.

As the community continues to grieve the loss of 215 children whose remains were recently uncovered on the former grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential “School,” Okanagan Indian Band (OKIB) Chief Byron Louis says it’s time to tear down colonial structures to make way for healing.

OKIB elected leadership is calling on the federal and provincial governments to remove and replace residential and day “school” buildings that continue to traumatize First Nations community members.

“Across Canada, due to lack of capital funding, residential schools, Indian day schools, churches and other monuments of oppression remain in Indigenous communities to serve as constant reminders of the colonial genocide committed by Canada,” says the statement released June 8.

Louis says these institutions and other “monuments of oppression” should be demolished and replaced with healing centres as a way to “decolonize community infrastructure.”

On OKIB’s land, two former “day schools” — where students experienced “poor treatment and abuse,” according to Louis’s statement — still stand. One now operates as the band office, and the other as an Elders’ gathering space, meaning many members must revisit painful memories in order to gain access to basic services.

“How can you actually ask our Elders who went there as students, to ask them to go into those places and to not be reminded of what had happened to them as children?” Louis says in a phone interview.

“What we’re looking for isn’t just to tear these buildings down but to actually replace them with buildings that are conducive to healing, as well as the intergenerational healing that will need to take place.”

The n’kmaplqs (top of the Okanagan Lake) people of OKIB belong to the Syilx Nation and they care for the lands in their ceremonial way as they have done since time immemorial.

Louis says after the discovery of 215 unmarked graves in Kamloops, he is especially focused on healing, and the people of n’kmaplqs deserve to live without these structural reminders in the community.

“Canadians of Japanese descent are not expected to travel to the New Denver Internment Camp to receive government services,” Louis says in a statement.

“Jewish descendants of the victims of the Holocaust aren’t expected to visit the internment and extermination camps to apply for a business loan. For Indigenous people, we’ve been left with these scars on our land in the form of unhealthy and traumatizing buildings.”

“Indian day schools” were used by Canada to assimilate Indigenous children alongside residential schools and other church- and state-run institutions.

On OKIB land, the first “day school” — operated by the Catholic Church and funded by the federal government — opened in 1923, and was known as the Okanagan Day School. It operated until 1945 and was later turned into the OKIB Band Office.

The second “day school” to open in the community was the Six Mile Creek Day School, which operated from 1947 to 1968 and is now used as an Elders’ gathering place called New Horizons.

According to OKIB, so-called “students” at these institutions endured abuse and cruel treatment.

“Students at the Six Mile School were forced … to kneel on their knuckles to learn mathematics and prayers for example,” the band’s news release says.

“Look at what we had to go through in the name of so-called western civilization, wiping out who we are, what we are, and how we think,” says Louis.

He says the children who were forced to attend these assimilation institutions are not to be looked at as “survivors” or “victims” — but rather as warriors.

There has been a “war against children,” he says. And this war has had many casualties and has been fought on different battlegrounds including residential and day “schools” and the foster care system.

An “estimated 150,000 First Nations, Métis, and Inuit children were removed from their families, homes, languages, and lands” and placed in residential “schools,” according to the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre (IRSHDC) at the University of British Columbia. Today, Indigenous children are grossly overrepresented in the child-welfare system due to racist, colonial policies and practices.

He hopes to hold up the warriors in the “war on children,” those who went to residential schools — to remember them for allowing Syilx people to stand tall in who they are today.

He reminds the Syilx people that despite these atrocities they are still here and now is the time to reclaim at full force what’s been taken.

“These children that went to residential schools came back — to still be Syilx, to still be Okanagan,” he says.

Canadians are the “beneficiaries of what was done,” says Louis, and they need to take accountability.

“It’s not just these buildings, it’s the continuing residue of what’s left,” Louis says.

“We don’t need a saviour,” Louis says. “You have no right to feed me, no matter how good the food is.”

Healing won’t be attained with a simple cheque, he says. What’s needed is meaningful action — support to tear down these former assimilation centres and replace them with something that will give life back to the people.

“They want to say sorry, but not make reparations. If you look at true reparation, you look at what was done in Germany: they were all given the opportunity to come back and rebuild their societies, their governments, everything, and they were given opportunities through the Marshall Plan,” he says. “Now ask yourself, “Where is our Marshall Plan?

“We need to stand up — our own people. We have everything we need,” Louis says, with passion in his voice. “The answer is not found in hate. We need to heal ourselves, and we need to heal ourselves for the right reasons.”

Louis shares that Syilx people have always been hard workers and they carry laws and stories that will help to guide them to their healing.

He then shares a small part of a Captikwl (oral storytelling law) teaching that he says he’s drawing upon in his plan to replace the colonial structures with healing centres:

We’re still the same people we always have been. Like our captikwl, when Coyote is … killed, Fox can step over him four times and bring him back to life, and if you find a single bone, a single hair of Coyote then Fox can bring him back to life. And that’s us. If you can find a single hair, and a piece of bone or anything of what we were we can bring ourselves back to life. And this is how it all fits in. We have everything we need to bring ourselves back.

Louis says Syilx people have all the teachings they need to move through these hard times and that reintegrating those stories and teachings back into the Syilx way of life is one way to reclaim the collective strength of the people.

“That’s why we need these places of healing where we can share these stories and give people back that identity of what they are and who they are — Syilx people,” he says.

Support for survivors and their families is available. Call the Indian Residential School Survivors Society at 1-800-721-0066, 1-866-925-4419 for the 24-7 crisis line. The KUU-US Crisis Line Society also offers 24-7 support at 250-723-4050 for adults, 250-723-2040 for youth, or toll-free at 1-800-588-8717.

Kelsie Kilawna, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Discourse

Palestinian resistance and international solidarity:

the BDS campaign

ABIGAIL B. BAKAN and YASMEEN ABU-LABAN

Abstract

Israel’s recent war in Gaza (‘Operation Cast Lead’) has both exposed Israel’s defiance of international law and provided the occasion for increasing support for an organised transnational boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS)movement. The BDS movement is aimed at challenging the Israeli state’s illegal military occupation and a host of corresponding repressive policies directed at Palestinians. However, the BDS campaign, and in particular the call for an academic boycott, has been controversial. It has generated a counter-response emphasising, variously, the goals of the movement as ineffective, counter- productive to peace and/or security, contrary to norms of academic freedom and even tied to anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism. Utilising a Gramscian approach, and drawing from Charles Mills’ concept of ‘racial contract’, we examine the history of the divestment campaign and the debates it has engendered. We argue that the effectiveness of BDS as a strategy of resistance and cross-border solidarity is intimately connected with a challenge to the hegemonic place of Zionism in western ideology. This campaign has challenged an international racial contract which, from 1948, has assigned a common interest between the state of Israel and international political allies, while absenting Palestinians as simultaneously non-white, the subjects of extreme repression and stateless. The BDS campaign also points to an alternative – the promise of a real and lasting peace in the Middle East.

Race & Class

Abigail Bakan

is Professor of Political Studies at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Her publications include Negotiating Citizenship: migrant women in Canada and the global system (with Daiva K. Stasiulis), winner of the 2007 Canadian Women’s Studies Association annual book award, and Critical Political Studies: debates and dialogues from the Left (co-editor with Eleanor MacDonald).

Yasmeen Abu-Laban

is Professor and Associate Chair (Research) in the Department of Political Science at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. She is co-author of Selling Diversity: immigration, multiculturalism, employment equity and globalization (2002), co-editor of Politics in North America: redefining continental relations (2008) and editor of Gendering the Nation-State: Canadian and comparative perspectives (2008).

https://www.academia.edu/3063092/Palestinian_resistance_and_international_solidarity_the_BDS_campaign

Dangerous Dissent?

Critical Pedagogy and the Case of

Israeli Apartheid Week

Evelyn Hamdon University of Alberta ehamdon@ualberta.ca

Scott Harris Independent researcher, Organizer; IAW Edmonton scottgharris@gmail.com

Cultural and Pedagogical Inquiry, 2010, 2 (2), Special Issue,

Abstract

This paper constitutes an examination of what is perceived to be a backlash with respect to Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) and similar educational campaigns. In it we review recent writings which relate to the importance of critical pedagogical spaces, and which problematize the emerging pushback against popular and political educational efforts to critique the occupation of Palestine. We also examine the history of IAW and chronicle attempts (within the Canadian context) to silence organizers and teachers associated with IAW. Finally we discuss the implications of this for further organizing and teaching about Palestine. Some of the questions at the heart of this paper are, “Why is this form of social justice education perceived to be so dangerous?”, “Where is the impetus coming from to silence this form of popular education” and “What are the implications of these types of surveillance and silencing.”

https://www.academia.edu/563301/Dangerous_Dissent_Critical_Pedagogy_and_the_Case_of_Israeli_Apartheid_Week?pls=RWLSxnqyad

Boycotts and Backlash: Canadian Opposition to Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movements from South Africa to Israel

Michael Bueckert

Published 2020

382 Pages

1 File ▾

Anti-Apartheid Movement

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PHD DISSERTATION

This dissertation explores the struggle in Canada over international boycott campaigns, providing a comparative analysis of Canadian solidarity movements which deploy economic practices of boycott, divestment, and sanctions (known collectively as “BDS”) to target the policies of foreign country, specifically focusing on campaigns against apartheid South Africa and contemporary Israel. In particular, this study looks closely at the organized backlash to these campaigns, including the role of domestic lobbies and state-led propaganda campaigns, in an attempt to explain why the boycott campaign against South Africa appeared to be so successful, while the campaign against Israel has struggled to become popular. This analysis relies on original archival research, as well as interviews with both supporters and opponents of these boycott movements. It also provides a new theorization of BDS in terms of its political economic character, exploring the limits and possibilities of these forms of activism, both in terms of material economic impact (as per Marx) and their role in ideological struggle (as per Gramsci and Hall). This study identifies a number of factors which distinguish the pro-South Africa and pro-Israel lobbies, which have affected the ability of each lobby to articulate to common sense and build popular and state support. While the pro-South Africa lobby ultimately failed to counter the anti-apartheid movement, Israel’s support within Canadian society has allowed its defenders to go further and deploy coercive measures against boycott supporters, narrowing the space for pro-Palestinian solidarity activism.

ABOUT AUTHOR

Michael Bueckert

Carleton University

Alumnus

Michael Bueckert is Vice President at Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME). He has a PhD in Sociology with a specialization in Political Economy from Carleton University in Ottawa. His dissertation explored the Canadian opposit ... more ▾

https://www.academia.edu/41640988/Boycotts_and_Backlash_Canadian_Opposition_to_Boycott_Divestment_and_Sanctions_BDS_Movements_from_South_Africa_to_Israel?auto=download&email_work_card=download-paper

NATIONAL FARMERS UNION

NFU Bulletin
Wednesday, June 9, 2021

In this Issue:

Summer Webinar Series: Food Justice
Gene Editing & Agroecology – Reframing the Debate on Food System Transition
Help Your Workers Stay Safe During COVID-19
Assurez la sécurité de vos travailleurs durant la pandémie de COVID-19
Les agriculteurs jouent un rôle de premier plan dans l’élaboration de politiques de réduction des émissions
The climate benefits of Canada’s dairy supply management program
Mourning the 215 Children Found in Unmarked Graves at Residential School Site, We Commit to Decolonization
NFU Submission on Bill C-216 Supply Management
NFU urges MPs to safeguard supply management by passing Bill C-216
Solidarity With Palestine, Now!
Canary Seed will soon become an official grain
La graine à canaris deviendra bientôt un grain officiel

UPCOMING SESSIONS

Summer Webinar Series: Food Justice

On Wednesday, June 16, 2021, from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM EST, join Dr. Sarah Wakefield and the University of Toronto School of the Environment in the second installment of its annual Summer Webinar Series! Considering the isolating nature of the pandemic, the School of the Environment is collaborating with the Environmental Students' Union to give students and the broader environmental community the opportunity to learn, connect, and share with one another.

In this webinar, Dr. Sarah Wakefield, a Professor in the Department of Geography and Planning at the University of Toronto, will draw upon her twenty years of research on food systems to discuss the evolution of food activism in Canada. In the first half of the webinar, Dr. Wakefield will examine the role of activist organizations in challenging the exploitative relationships that remain prevalent in our food system, and the shift towards food justice and food sovereignty activism. In the second half of the webinar, Dr. Wakefield and the audience will explore food activism in Canada and highlight various actions that may support the creation of sustainable and just food systems while challenging existing power structures.

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Click here to Register!

Gene Editing & Agroecology – Reframing the Debate on Food System Transition

Mon, June 14, 2021 | 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM BST

Looked at through the lens of the current industrial farming paradigm, gene editing makes sense as a ‘tool in the toolbox’. But farming urgently needs to change and it is widely agreed that agroecology is the paradigm we need to adopt. So what does gene editing – and other high tech options – look like when assessed within an agroecological framework?

This session examines how genome editing looks when viewed through the lens of 10 principles of agroecology. An expert panel will explore the pace of development in genome editing – and related technologies, the force of the “tool in the toolbox ‘ narrative, whether it is a help or a hindrance to an agroecological transition, and how it affects farmers, policy and the perception of where farming goes next.

Panel
Maywa Montenegro, Assistant professor in Environmental Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Jim Thomas, Co-Executive Director and Researcher with the ETC Group.
Chantal Clement, Deputy Director of IPES-Food.
Francesco Ajena, Independent consultant on sustainable and resilient food systems.
Chris Smaje, British farmer and author of Small Farm Future.
Nettie Wiebe, Organic farmer and professor of ethics at St. Andrew’s College, University of Saskatchewan.

Chair
Pat Thomas, Director, Beyond GM/A Bigger Conversation

Conversational format will include an audience Q&A session.

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Click here to Book Free Tickets!

Help Your Workers Stay Safe During COVID-19

Free Online Course for Temporary Foreign Workers

To keep your agricultural operation safe and productive, you need to protect your workers from COVID-19. This free online course helps temporary foreign workers learn about how COVID-19 spreads, how to protect themselves, and what to do if they become sick. Assign this course to multiple people and track its completion. Available in English, French, and Spanish.

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Click here to Register!

More COVID-19 Resources for Temporary Foreign Work ers

Access videos, infographics, and other resources to help protect your workers from COVID-19.

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Access Resources

Assurez la sécurité de vos travailleurs durant la pandémie de COVID-19

Cours en ligne gratuit pour les travailleurs étrangers temporaires

Pour que votre exploitation agricole demeure sûre et productive, vous devez protéger vos travailleurs contre la COVID 19. Ce cours en ligne gratuit montre aux travailleurs étrangers temporaires comment la COVID-19 se propage, quels moyens prendre pour se protéger et quoi faire s’ils tombent malades. Inscrivez plusieurs personnes à ce cours et suivez les taux d’achèvement. Disponible en anglais, en français et en espagnol.

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Inscription au cours

Ressources supplémentaires sur la COVID-19 pour les travailleurs étrangers temporaires

Accédez des vidéos, des infographies et d’autres ressources pour aider à protéger vos travailleurs contre la COVID-19.

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Les agriculteurs jouent un rôle de premier plan dans l’élaboration de politiques de réduction des émissions

Le Canada s’est engagé à réduire ses émissions de gaz à effet de serre de 40% d’ici 2030 et à atteindre la carboneutralité d’ici 2050. De grands changements sont à venir, pour tous les secteurs, et les organisations et coalitions agricoles proposent des solutions.

Les émissions agricoles proviennent de trois sources principales : les engrais azotés, les carburants et le bétail. De nombreux agriculteurs veulent réduire les émissions découlant de ces trois sources, mais nous avons besoin que les gouvernements s’associent à nous pour soutenir et accélérer nos transitions, et ce, de manière à améliorer les revenus agricoles nets. Lors de réunions avec le ministre de l’Agriculture du Canada et autres décideurs, l’Union nationale des fermiers (UNF) a mis en exergue plusieurs programmes nécessaires.

Cliquez ici pour lire la suite

The climate benefits of Canada’s dairy supply management program

Darrin Qualman at the Canadian National Farmers Union noted that the smaller dairy herds can be grazed on grasslands, helping to sequester carbon and minimize emissions. Destroying or displacing smaller, dispersed grazing herds of dairy cattle and replacing them with production from huge, centralized, non-grazing herds is a net loss for soil health, carbon sequestration, sustainability and the climate.

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Click here to read the Article!

Mourning the 215 Children Found in Unmarked Graves at Residential School Site, We Commit to Decolonization

In particular, we strongly support the calls for an Indigenous-led, government funded inquiry into the undocumented deaths and burials on sites of residential schools, in line with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action 71-76. We also support calls for the federal government to fund care centres and other forms of support for residential school survivors and their families.

We recognize that this is an especially important time for us to listen and centre the voices of First Nations, Inuit and Métis Peoples. This is a time for us to deepen our understanding of Indigenous dispossession, and reflect on the paradigms of land ownership and commodification that undermine Indigenous food sovereignty, governance, and kinship systems. The actions we take on a daily basis can make a difference, and we need to hold governments, those around us, and ourselves to account for perpetuating systemic racism and injustice.

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Click here to read the Statement!

NFU Submission on Bill C-216 Supply Management

This week the NFU asked House of Commons Committee on International Trade to support Bill C-216. This Private Members Bill would make it illegal for any future trade deals to provide more foreign access to Canada's supply-managed markets.

NFU urges MPs to safeguard supply management

by passing Bill C-216

The National Farmers Union (NFU) is urging Members of Parliament to support Bill C-216, which would make it illegal for any future trade agreement to provide more foreign access to Canada’s supply-managed markets.

The supply management system stands upon three pillars: production discipline, which ensures farmers produce no more or less than the market needs; cost-of-production pricing, which ensures that farmers receive a fair income; and import control, which prevents over-supply. Bill C-216 ensures that the third pillar will remain in place.

“The Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement with Europe (CETA), the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), and the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUMSA), show us why we need Bill C-216,” said Katie Ward, NFU President. “Each took a significant portion of Canada’s supply managed market away from Canadian family farmers.”

Now, Canada is negotiating trade agreements with the United Kingdom and with the Mercosur countries — Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela – in South America.
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Click here to read the Press Release!

Solidarity With Palestine, Now!

In April 2021, Human Rights Watch (HRW) confirmed what the people of the world have been denouncing for years: “The Israeli authorities are committing the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution.” According to the new HRW Report, “The severity of the repression in the occupied territory, including the imposition of a draconian military regime on the Palestinians while Jewish Israelis living in a segregated way in the same territory enjoy all their rights, which Israeli Civil Law respects as rights, amounts to a systematic oppression necessary for the existence of apartheid”.

This May 15th was the 73rd anniversary of the Nakba or “catastrophe” that occurred in 1948 with the expulsion of 750,000 Palestinians from their homes and lands to create the State of Israel. Although the agreement sanctioned by the United Nations was that they would only occupy 55 percent of the Palestinian territory, in violation of international law they occupied most of Palestine through violence and repression. In the context of Nakba 2021, known as “the day of pain” by the Palestinian people, the Criminal State of Israel intensified its occupationist plans and displacement of the Palestinians with a series of violent attacks that have resulted in the vile murder of more than 250 Palestinians – the majority being children, women and seniors. In response, La Via Campesina issued a new Declaration of Solidarity telling the world, once again: Palestinian Rights are Human Rights too!

Canary Seed will soon become an official grain

News release

June 9, 2021 Winnipeg Canadian Grain Commission

The Canadian Grain Commission has released a new online tool to help producers quickly and accurately determine the volume and test weight of their grain.

The test weight calculators for Canadian grains , which are available for free on the Canadian Grain Commission's website, will make it easier for producers to calculate the test weight of their grain in 3 commonly used units of measurement:
kilogram per hectolitre (kg / hL)
pounds per Avery bushel (lb / bu-A)
pounds per Winchester bushel (lb / bu-W)

The tool also includes calculators to help producers convert tons to bushels and determine the volume of grain in bins, piles, and containers.

With this information, producers will be better equipped to make business decisions for their farm. For example, accurate volume estimates are critical for producers, especially when reporting for crop insurance. The tool will also help producers determine Winchester bushel weights when they are delivering against a US contract. Test weights are also important when calculating how many trips can be made hauling grain to elevators and storage facilities.

Quote

"As a producer, I understand how important it is to have accurate data about my crop. These calculators are an easy way to get accurate conversion results and give farmers another tool to use in managing their operation."

Doug chorney

[Message clipped] View entire message

Thursday, June 10, 2021

SCHADENFREUDE

AP Exclusive: State bar investigating Texas attorney general

DALLAS (AP) — The Texas bar association is investigating whether state Attorney General Ken Paxton's failed efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election based on bogus claims of fraud amounted to professional misconduct.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The State Bar of Texas initially declined to take up a Democratic Party activist's complaint that Paxton's petitioning of the U.S. Supreme Court to block Joe Biden’s victory was frivolous and unethical. But a tribunal that oversees grievances against lawyers overturned that decision late last month and ordered the bar to look into the accusations against the Republican official.

The investigation is yet another liability for the embattled attorney general, who is facing a years-old criminal case, a separate, newer FBI investigation, and a Republican primary opponent who is seeking to make electoral hay of the various controversies. It also makes Paxton one of the highest profile lawyers to face professional blowback over their roles in Donald Trump's effort to delegitimize his defeat.

A spokesman for the attorney general's office did not respond to requests for comment. Paxton's defense lawyer, Philip Hilder, declined to comment.

Kevin Moran, the 71-year-old president of the Galveston Island Democrats, shared his complaint with The Associated Press along with letters from the State Bar of Texas and the Board of Disciplinary Appeals that confirm the investigation. He said Paxton's efforts to dismiss other states' election results was a wasteful embarrassment for which the attorney general should lose his law license.

“He wanted to disenfranchise the voters in four other states,” said Moran. “It's just crazy.”

Texas' top appeals lawyer, who would usually argue the state's cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, notably did not join Paxton in bringing the election suit. The high court threw it out.

Paxton has less than a month to reply to Moran's claim that the lawsuit to overturn the results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin was misleading and brought in bad faith, according to a June 3 letter from the bar. All four of the battleground states voted for Biden in November.

From there, bar staff will take up the case in a proceeding that resembles the grand jury stage of a criminal investigation. Bar investigators are empowered to question witnesses, hold hearings and issue subpoenas to determine whether a lawyer likely committed misconduct. That finding then launches a disciplinary process that could ultimately result in disbarment, suspension or a lesser punishments. A lawyer also could be found to have done nothing wrong.

The bar dismisses thousands of grievances each year and the Board of Disciplinary Appeals, 12 independent lawyers appointed by the Texas Supreme Court, overwhelmingly uphold those decisions. Reversals like that of Moran's complaint happened less than 7% of the time last year, according to the bar's annual report.

Claire Reynolds, a spokeswoman and lawyer for the bar, said state law prohibits the agency from commenting on complaints unless they result is public sanctions or a court action.

The bar's investigation is confidential and likely to take months. But it draws renewed attention to Paxton's divisive defense of Trump as he and Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush vie for the former president’s endorsement in the Republican primary to run for attorney general in 2022.

On the Democratic side, Joe Jaworski, the former mayor of Galveston, has said he'll run. Moran said Jaworski is a friend but that he played no role in the complaint against Paxton.

Paxton's election challenge was filled with claims that failed to withstand basic scrutiny. A succession of other judges and state elections officials have refuted claims of widespread voter fraud, and Trump's own Justice Department found no evidence of fraud that could have changed the election's outcome.

Nonetheless, Paxton's lawsuit won him political and financial support from Trump loyalists at a time when fresh allegations of criminal wrongdoing led many in the state GOP to keep their distance from the attorney general.

Last fall, eight of Paxton's top deputies mounted an extraordinary revolt in which they accused him of abusing his office in the service of a wealthy donor. The FBI is investigating their claims.

Paxton has denied wrongdoing and separately pleaded not guilty in a state securities fraud case that's languished since 2015. He has also used his office in ways that have benefited allies and other donors.

The new criminal allegations prompted an exodus of the top lawyers from Paxton's office. But Solicitor General Kyle Hawkins was still serving as Texas' top appellate lawyer at the time of the election lawsuit.

Although the solicitor general usually handles cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, it was a private Washington, D.C.-based lawyer who brought the election challenge with Paxton. Hawkins has since moved to private practice. A spokesman for his firm said “we can’t help you" with questions about why he didn't handle the suit.

Jake Bleiberg, The Associated Press

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
As much as 50% of the stimulus unemployment money may have been stolen, Axios reports

asheffey@businessinsider.com (Ayelet Sheffey)

In this photo illustration, hands are seen counting US 100 dollar bills.

Valera Golovniov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

The CEO of a fraud detection service told Axios that 50% of stimulus unemployment may have been stolen.

This follows a report that found $39 billion in unemployment money was wasted, partly due to fraud.

Stimulus checks were also stolen during the pandemic, prompting a need for better oversight.

From direct stimulus payments to unemployment benefits, Americans have received a range of different forms of financial aid during the pandemic. But a large chunk of that aid - as much as 50% - may not have made it into the hands of the right people.

Axios reported on Thursday that unemployment fraud has been on the rise during the pandemic, with Blake Hall, the CEO of ID.me, a fraud prevention service, telling the news service that America has lost $400 billion to fraudulent claims and that as much as 50% of unemployment claims might have been stolen. The CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions' Government business, Haywood Talcove, also told Axios that at least 70% of stolen money ultimately left the country, with much of it ending up in places including China and Nigeria.

"These groups are definitely backed by the state," Talcove said.

This is not the first reported instance of stimulus money ending up in the wrong hands. Last week, federal authorities announced that Venezuelans living in South Florida and Mexico had stolen over $800,000 in stimulus checks since the start of the pandemic.

And on May 28, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found that $39 billion in unemployment money from the CARES Act had been wasted, partly due to failures in detecting fraud and improper payments.

So how are scammers managing to carry out this fraud?

WITH THE AID OF 'STATES RIGHTS' TO DISTRIBUTE THE MOOLA

Axios reported that they often steal people's personal information to withdraw money, and "mules," or low-level criminals, are given debit cards to withdraw that money from ATMs, which then gets transferred abroad.

Given that some Democrats are pushing for recurring stimulus payments and unemployment benefits beyond what has already been delivered, fraud is something that will need to be addressed before moving forward. The OIG recommended more modernized technology to better detect fraudulent payments, along with working with states to help process claims.

But as a growing number of GOP-led states are ending unemployment benefits early to encourage people to get back to work, any further extension of unemployment benefits looks unlikely. President Joe Biden even said in a speech last week that while the benefits have been effective thus far, "it makes sense" for them to expire in September.

"A temporary boost in unemployment benefits that we enacted helped people who lost their jobs through no fault of their own, and who still may be in the process of getting vaccinated," the president said in brief remarks following the May jobs report. "But it's going to expire in 90 days - it makes sense it expires in 90 days."
Read the original article on Business Insider

USA

Facing shortage of high-skilled workers, employers are seeking more immigrant talent, study finds

Hannah Miao

CNBC

10/5/2021

The U.S. does not have enough high-skilled workers to meet demand for computer-related jobs, and employers are seeking immigrant talent to help fill that gap, according to a new report.

For every unemployed computer or math worker in the country in 2020, there were more than seven job postings for computer-related occupations, bipartisan immigration research group New American Economy found in the study.

"More nuanced and responsive policy around employment-based immigration could be one way to help the U.S. more quickly and more robustly bounce back from the Covid-19 [pandemic] and future economic disruptions and crises," the report said.

© Provided by CNBC Muthumalla Dhandapani, an Indian immigrant with an H1-B visa and a Comcast employee in Sunnyvale, protests President Trump's immigration orders in 2017.

The U.S. does not have enough high-skilled workers to meet demand for computer-related jobs, and employers are seeking immigrant talent to help fill that gap, according to a new report released Thursday.

For every unemployed computer or math worker in the country in 2020, there were more than seven job postings for computer-related occupations, bipartisan immigration research group New American Economy found.

"More nuanced and responsive policy around employment-based immigration could be one way to help the U.S. more quickly and more robustly bounce back from the Covid-19 [pandemic] and future economic disruptions and crises," the report said.

The study comes as record job openings in the U.S. coincide with persistent unemployment, suggesting a mismatch in labor demand and supply. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce last week launched a campaign calling for an increase in employment-based immigration to address the worker shortage.

NAE, which was founded by billionaire Mike Bloomberg, analyzed data from Labor Certification Applications for foreign-born skilled workers, unemployment numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and job postings data from the website Burning Glass Technologies.

Employers in the U.S. posted 1.36 million job openings for computer-related roles in 2020, according to NAE's analysis. Yet there were only 177,000 unemployed workers in computer and math occupations last year, NAE found, using Labor Department data.

"Even something as powerful and traumatic and unprecedented as Covid did not put a dent in the country's demand and shortage of high-skilled STEM talent," said Dick Burke, president and CEO of Envoy Global, an immigration services firm that co-authored the study.

Employers continued to seek high-skilled immigrant workers to fill labor shortages during the pandemic. There were 371,641 foreign labor requests for computer-related jobs filed in 2020, NAE reported.

The U.S. disproportionately relies on foreign-born talent in computer-related jobs. Immigrants made up 25% of the computer workforce in 2019, according to NAE's analysis of Census data, compared with 17.4% of the broader labor force, according to the Labor Department.

"The evidence in this report is really adding more support to the idea that there are still needs from employers in the United States for computer-related workers that are not being addressed by current immigration policy in the United States," said Andrew Lim, director of quantitative research at NAE.

Seven of the 10 fastest-growing jobs for immigrant workers, as measured by Labor Certification Applications requests, were computer-related, NAE reported.

© Provided by CNBC

A 2020 study of government data by the nonpartisan National Foundation for American Policy found that a higher share of holders of H-1B visas — the authorization for high-skilled immigrant workers — in a given occupation reduced the unemployment rate and boosted the earnings growth rate for U.S.-born workers.

"We have not revamped our legal immigration categories, including business immigration, since 1990. Some of those categories are out of alignment with our needs in the United States today," said Stephen Yale-Loehr, an immigration law professor at Cornell Law School, who was not involved with the NAE study.

"The pandemic has exacerbated those inconsistencies because people who are desperately needed to restart various businesses have been unable to enter the United States," Yale-Loehr said.

Google led a court filing in May supporting H-4 work authorizations for spouses of H1-B visa holders. The amicus brief's signatories also included Amazon, Apple and Microsoft. The companies said that H-4 workers are essential to their operations, noting that two-thirds of employed H-4 visa-holders work a science, technology and mathematics job.

BAD BOSS

BrewDog has a 'culture of fear,' ex-staffers allege

By Hanna Ziady, CNN Business

© Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images Stockpiles of BrewDog beers at their brewery on April 03, 2020 in Ellon, Scotland. Scotland based brewery BrewDog have adapted their production to develop and produce hand sanitiser to donate to various charities across the UK as well as the NHS working throughout the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The Coronavirus (COVID-19) has spread to many countries across the world, claiming over 50,000 lives and infecting over 1 million people. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images) (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

BrewDog, one of the biggest UK craft beer producers, has apologized after dozens of former employees accused the company of fostering a "culture of fear" and fomenting "toxic attitudes towards junior staff."

In an open letter published on Wednesday, a group of more than 70 people describing themselves as former staffers said they felt "burnt out, afraid and miserable" after working at the company, a Scottish brewery and bar chain known for its punk rock attitude, liberal politics and aggressive marketing.

"Being treated like a human being was sadly not always a given for those working at BrewDog ... The true culture of BrewDog is, and seemingly always has been, fear," the former employees wrote in the letter, which said that an additional 45 ex-staffers endorsed the message but "did not feel safe to include either their names or initials."

BrewDog CEO James Watt said in a statement that the letter was "upsetting, but so important."

"Our focus now is not on contradicting or contesting the details of that letter, but to listen, learn and act," he added. "We are going to reach out to our entire team past and present to learn more. But most of all, right now, we are sorry."

He said that the company has "thousands of employees with positive stories to tell" but acknowledged that the letter "proves that on many occasions we haven't got it right." BrewDog has 1,215 UK employees, according to a spokesperson.

The letter singled out Watt, who co-founded the company in 2007, for creating the toxic atmosphere: "It is with you that the responsibility for this rotten culture lies. By valuing growth, speed and action above all else, your company has achieved incredible things, but at the expense of those who delivered your dreams."

BrewDog's rapid growth has seen the company establish breweries in the United States, Germany and Australia. It now has more than 100 bars worldwide and exports into 60 countries.

In 2017, an investment from US private equity group TSG Consumer Partners valued the company at $1.24 billion.

BrewDog's quirky and irreverent marketing campaigns have helped grow its fan base. But the former employees alleged in the letter that some of the stunts were just lip service.

In 2014 the company launched a limited edition beer called "Hello My Name is Vladimir" in response to Russia's "gay propaganda" law and claimed it had sent a case to President Vladimir Putin. According to the former employees, however, no beer was sent.

"How many more times will we see the stories about sending protest beer to Russia (you didn't)?," the letter said. It cited other examples in which the company allegedly bent the truth in marketing campaigns. BrewDog did not comment on whether it had sent the beer in response to questions sent by CNN Business.

BrewDog has recently raised most of a £27.5 million ($39 million) target to fund sustainability initiatives by selling shares to the public and has touted a possible IPO later this year.