Lawyer: Former president of North Carolina NAACP found dead


The Rev. T. Anthony Spearman, then-president of the North Carolina NAACP, crumples up a mailer which tells voters that IDs are needed in the upcoming 2020 election during a news conference outside the Legislative Building in Raleigh, N.C., on Dec. 27, 2019. Spearman, a civil rights advocate and former president of the N.C., branch of the NAACP who also served as president of the N.C. Council of Churches, has been found dead, his attorney said Wednesday, July 20, 2022.

 (Ethan Hyman/The News & Observer via AP)

Wed, July 20, 2022 

The Rev. T. Anthony Spearman, a civil rights advocate and former president of the North Carolina branch of the NAACP who also served as president of the N.C. Council of Churches, has been found dead, authorities said Wednesday.

Spearman, 71, was found in his home on Tuesday, the Guilford County Sheriff's Office said in a news release. The release indicated that either family or friends found him, but did not provide any further details.

The death was confirmed earlier in the day by Mark Cummings, a Greensboro attorney who said he was representing Spearman. Cummings declined to provide additional details about the death and did not say what he was representing Spearman for.

“In the mold of Dr. King, he truly was a drum major for justice,” Cummings said. “He saw the good in everybody in every situation, even those of his detractors, even those who would criticize him. He always found a way to see the best in them.”

Cummings said he would call on state officials to assist local law enforcement in an investigation.

Spearman's family issued a statement calling him “a man of strong conviction who loved his family with every ounce of his being.” A family member didn't respond on Wednesday to a request for additional comment.

Spearman was elected as North Carolina NAACP president in 2017 and served one four-year term.

Bishop William J. Barber, who preceded Spearman as the North Carolina NAACP president and who is now president of the national, not-for-profit organization Repairers of the Breach, said in a statement, “I have lost a true brother in the struggle.”

“We have lost a scholar, a preacher, a voting rights defender, an advocate for prison reform and for the wrongfully accused and a stalwart soldier in the cause of love and justice for all humankind,” Barber said. “This great man’s efforts and commitment should be cherished.”

Spearman was suspended from the NAACP by the organization's national leadership about five months ago, The News & Observer reported, quoting NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson as saying that Spearman repeatedly refused to turn over N.C. NAACP property — which included meeting minutes and financial records — after he lost his bid for reelection in 2021.

Spearman filed a lawsuit in June against several state and national NAACP officials, accusing them of defamation and conspiracy to remove him from the presidency, WRAL reported. He alleged that his support of a woman who said she was sexually harassed by a member of the state conference led to the effort to have him ousted and made him a target of retribution, the story said.

The man who was accused, the Rev. Curtis Gatewood, has in the past denied any kind of sexual assault or intentional sexual harassment, although he told The Associated Press in a 2019 statement that he didn't “deny the feelings of my accusers.”

In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Gatewood added, “I have no other comments regarding the specifics of the matter at the time and believe enough has been said, documented, and presented for God to allow even a blind man to ‘see’ if seeing is truly desired."

Gatewood said in a separate post on Tuesday that while he and Spearman disagreed on issues involving the state NAACP, “I loved the brother.”

“I wanted the news of his demise to be untrue,” Gatewood wrote. “I forgave him.”

U.S. House report: Trump administration added census citizenship question for political gain



A new report from the House oversight committee says the Trump administration's efforts to add a citizenship question to the decennial census in 2020 was to help Republicans win elections.

 File Photo by Jim Ruymen/UPI | License Photo

July 20 (UPI) -- New documents, released by the House oversight committee Wednesday, show former President Donald Trump's administration hid its true intent for adding a citizenship question to the decennial census that determines how the U.S. House of Representatives' 435 seats are divided among states.

The documents reveal the Trump administration's public reason to add the citizenship question in 2020, to protect people's voting rights, was false, according to members of the committee.

The internal memos and emails show the administration's actual intention was to help Republicans win elections, the House committee report concluded.

The documents' release Wednesday follows a two-year legal battle that began after Trump officials refused to turn them over for a congressional investigation. The Biden administration, which assumed the lawsuit, agreed to allow the committee to conduct a review.

RELATED Census data reveals growth in racial, ethnic diversity in U.S.

"For years, the Trump administration delayed and obstructed the oversight committee's investigation into the true reason for adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census, even after the Supreme Court ruled the administration's efforts were illegal," Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., who chairs the committee, said in a press release.

Former Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in congressional testimony that the administration wanted to add the questions because it needed more accurate data on citizenship to enforce the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The question -- "Is this person a citizen of the United States?" -- did not end up on the 2020 census forms, after the Supreme Court ruled the administration's use of the Voting Rights Act as justification "seems to have been contrived," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion.

RELATED Trump orders ban on counting undocumented immigrants for House apportionment

The U.S. Constitution says House seats shall be apportioned based on "the whole Number of free Persons." Excluding non-citizens from the census count could have cost California, Texas and Florida congressional seats, the report notes.

Included in the documents is a 2017 email from James Uthmeier, a commerce department attorney, who tried to push the Justice Department to add the question.

"Ultimately, everyone is in agreement with our approach to move slowly, carefully and deliberately so as to not expose us to litigation risk," Uthmeier wrote in the email, according to the report.

RELATED House panel sues for Trump records on census citizenship question

A revised memo said "there are bases for legal arguments that the Founding Fathers intended for the apportionment count to be based on legal inhabitants."

Kris Kobach, Kansas' former secretary of state, also advocated for adding a citizenship question.

"There are about 710,000 people in each congressional district. But, if half of the district is made up of illegal aliens, then there are only 355,000 citizens in the district. The value of each citizen's vote in such a district is twice as high. That is unfair," Kobach wrote in a 2018 op-ed in Breitbart News.

Maloney is calling for new legislative reforms to prevent future "unconstitutional efforts to interfere with the census."

"Today's committee memo pulls back the curtain on this shameful conduct and shows clearly how the Trump administration secretly tried to manipulate the census for political gain while lying to the public and Congress about their goals," she said.

Secret memo links citizenship question to apportionment
By MIKE SCHNEIDER

yesterday

This Sunday, April 5, 2020, file photo, shows an envelope containing a 2020 census letter mailed to a U.S. resident in Detroit. A U.S. Census Bureau director couldn't be fired without cause and new questions to the census form would have to be vetted by Congress under proposed legislation which attempts to prevent in the future the type of political interference into the nation's head count that took place during the Trump administration. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya, File)


Trump officials tried to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census in a move experts said would benefit Republicans despite initial doubts among some in the administration that it was legal, according to an investigative report released Wednesday by a congressional oversight committee.

The report offers a smoking gun of sorts — a secret memo the committee obtained after a two-year legal battle — showing that a top Trump appointee in the Commerce Department explored apportionment as a reason to include the question.

“The Committee’s investigation has exposed how a group of political appointees sought to use the census to advance an ideological agenda and potentially exclude non-citizens from the apportionment count,” the report released by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform said.

It has long been speculated that the Trump administration wanted the citizenship question in order to exclude people in the country illegally from apportionment numbers.

The report includes several drafts showing how the memo evolved from recognizing that doing so would likely be unconstitutional to coming up with other justifications for adding the citizenship question.

The apportionment process uses state population counts gathered during the once-a-decade census to divide up the number of congressional seats each state gets.

Experts feared a citizenship question would scare off Hispanics and immigrants from participating in the 2020 census, whether they were in the country legally or not. The citizenship question was blocked by the Supreme Court in 2019. In the high court’s decision, Chief Justice John Roberts said the reason the Commerce Department had given for the citizenship question — it was needed for the Justice Department’s enforcement of the Voting Rights Act — appeared to be contrived.

The Commerce Department oversees the Census Bureau, which conducts the count used to determine political power and the distribution of $1.5 trillion in federal funding each year. Then-Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross testified before the oversight committee that apportionment wasn’t the reason for the citizenship question, even though the Commerce Department memo suggests otherwise, the House report said.

“I have never intentionally misled Congress or intentionally said anything incorrect under oath,” Ross said during a 2019 hearing before the oversight committee.

According to the House committee report, during planning for the citizenship question, an adviser to the Commerce Department reached out to a Republican redistricting expert who had written that using citizen voting-age population instead of the total population for the purpose of redrawing of congressional and legislative districts could be advantageous to Republicans and non-Hispanic whites.

The August 2017 memo prepared by senior political appointee James Uthmeier went to the heart of interactions by the Commerce and Justice departments to come up with a contrived reason for the citizenship question, the House report said.

An initial draft of the memo raised doubts that a citizenship question would be legal since it can only be added to the once-a-decade census if the Commerce Secretary concludes that gathering that information in survey sampling is not feasible. But a later draft removed that concern and added that the Commerce Secretary had the discretion to add a citizenship question for reasons other than apportionment.

An even later draft removed apportionment as an exception to the Commerce Secretary’s discretion and added “there is nothing illegal or unconstitutional about adding a citizenship question.”

An early draft of the memo also noted that using a citizenship data for apportionment was likely unconstitutional and went against 200 years of precedent, but that language also was removed in later drafts.

The Founding Fathers’ “conscious choice” not to exclude people in the U.S. illegally from the count “suggests the Founders did not intend to distinguish between citizens and non-citizens” for apportionment,” Uthmeier wrote in the early draft.

The House report says Uthmeier researched using Voting Rights Act enforcement as a reason for the citizenship question three months before the Justice Department requested it, and hand-delivered his memo with that suggestion to the Justice Department in order to avoid a digital fingerprint.

Uthmeier, who now is chief of staff to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, didn’t immediately respond to an email inquiry Wednesday.

In an effort to prevent future attempts at politicizing the census, members of the oversight committee on Wednesday debated a bill introduced by U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., that would require new questions for the head count to be vetted by Congress, prohibit a Census Bureau director from being fired without cause and limit the number of political appointees at the Census Bureau to three.

Even though many of the Trump administration’s political efforts ultimately failed, some advocates believe they did have an impact, resulting in significantly larger undercounts of most racial and ethnic minorities in the 2020 census compared to the 2010 census.

Republican lawmakers said the bill would make the Census Bureau director unaccountable and limit the ability to add important questions to the census form. They offered an amendment that would add a citizenship question to the next census and exclude people in the U.S. illegally from the apportionment count, claiming their inclusion dilutes the political power of citizens. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that all people in each U.S. state be counted for apportionment.

Committee members voted down the amendment and passed the bill Wednesday afternoon.

“What this bill does, it more completely delegates Census Bureau activity to the bureaucracy,” said U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz. “When you delegate to the bureaucracy, you are taking away the power of the American people.”

___

Follow Mike Schneider on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MikeSchneiderAP

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

US Justice Department charges 36 in $1.2 billion healthcare fraud schemes

July 20 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday charged three dozen people for allegedly orchestrating healthcare fraud schemes that involved ordering unnecessary or fraudulent medical tests and equipment.

The schemes spanned 13 federal districts that defrauded $1.2 billion in orders of unnecessary telemedicine, cardiovascular and cancer genetic testing as well as durable medical equipment, the Justice Department said in a statement.

In addition to the 36 individuals charged, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced it took adverse administrative actions against 52 healthcare providers involved in similar schemes and seized $8 million in cash, luxury vehicles and other fraud proceeds.

"The Department of Justice is committed to prosecuting people who abuse our health care system and exploit telemedicine technologies in fraud and bribery schemes," Assistant Attorney Kenneth A. Polite Jr., of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, said. "This enforcement action demonstrates that the department will do everything in its power to protect the healthcare systems our communities rely on from people looking to defraud them for their own personal gain."

Those charged by the Justice Department allegedly used telemedicine to obtain orders for fraudulent or unneeded medical tests that were billed to Medicare and other insurance companies without any interaction with patients in many cases.

The fraudulent tests also provided little or no valuable information to the patients or their primary care doctors.

Owners and operators of medical laboratories charged in the cases also allegedly paid illegal kickbacks and bribes to telemedicine companies, medical professionals and medical equipment companies in exchange for patient referrals seeking to bolster their business.

In one such case, Jamie McNamara, the owner of multiple clinical labs in Missouri, allegedly executed a scheme in which marketing companies paid telemedicine centers to call patients and offer them no-cost, Medicare-approved cardiovascular and genetic testing. A medical professional was then paid to clear the tests regardless of whether they were necessary for the patients.

McNamara and other co-defendants are also accused of using "shell laboratories" to submit false or unnecessary claims to Medicare for the fraudulent tests and equipment worth more than $174 million which was laundered through a "complex network" of bank accounts and assets such as luxury vehicles, real estate and a yacht.

The Justice Department said that telemedicine schemes account for more than $1 billion of the total alleged losses associated with the charges.

"Fraudsters and scammers take advantage of telemedicine and use it as a platform to orchestrate their criminal schemes," said Luis Quesada, assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Investigative Division. "This collaborative law enforcement action shows our dedication to investigating and bringing justice to those who look to exploit our U.S. healthcare system at the expense of patients."

International Chess Day marks International Chess Federation's 1924 birthday




July 20 (UPI) -- International Chess Day, celebrated annually on July 20, was started by UNESCO to mark the anniversary of the day the International Chess Federation was founded in 1924.

The holiday was first proposed in 1966 by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization to celebrate the game of chess on the anniversary of the founding of the International Chess Federation, commonly known by its French acronym FIDE, in Paris in 1924.

FIDE, now based in Lausanne, currently has affiliate National Chess Federations in 199 countries. The organization was recognized by the International Olympic Committee as a Global Sporting Organization in 1999.

The group called on chess aficionados to take advantage of International Chess Day 2022 by teaching others to play the game.

Other holidays and observances for July 20, 2022, include Fortune Cookie Day, International Cake Day, Moon Day, Nap Day, National Hot Dog Day, National Ice Cream Soda Day, National Lollipop Day, National Ugly Truck Contest Day, Space Exploration Day, Take Your Poet to Work Day and World Jump Day.

Google Doodle celebrates German composer, physicist Oskar Sala



Monday's Google Doodle marks the 112th birthday of German composer and physicist Oskar Sala. Image courtesy of Google


July 18 (UPI) -- Monday's Google Doodle celebrates what would have been the 112th birthday of German physicist and electronic music composer Oskar Sala.

The son of a singer mother and ophthalmologist father was fascinated by music, particularly the violin, piano and the trautonium, from the time he was a boy and he grew up to become a pioneer in the electronic musical field of subharmonics.

Sala studied physics and composition at school and developed a new instrument called the mixture-trautonium, which he used to produce music and sound effects like bird cries, hammering and door and window slams that were heard in television, radio and film projects such as Rosemary and The Birds.

He donated his original mixture-trautonium to the German Museum for Contemporary Technology in 1995.

Sala died in 2002 at the age of 92.

Trautonium - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trautonium

The Trautonium is an electronic synthesizer invented in 1930 by Friedrich Trautwein in Berlin at the Musikhochschule's music and radio lab, the Rundfunkversuchstelle. Soon afterwards Oskar Sala joined him, continuing development until Sala's death in 2002. 

 ...

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Rare species of moth spotted in Scotland for first time

The Scottish Wildlife Trust said a sallow-shoot piercer moth was spotted in the Cathkin Marsh Wildlife Reserve, marking the first time the species has been documented in the country. Photo courtesy of Patrick Clement/Scottish Wildlife Trust

July 20 (UPI) -- The Scottish Wildlife Trust said a visitor to a wildlife reserve spotted a sallow-shoot piercer moth -- the first of its species documented in the country.

The wildlife trust said Bill Higgins was walking in the Cathkin Marsh Wildlife Reserve, which is operated by the trust and situated near Glasgow, when he identified the unusual visitor.

"The moth is one of thousands of species in the family of tortrix moths," the trust said in a news release. "It relies on willow trees as its food plant. Eggs are laid on buds and the larvae burrow into twigs for the winter before emerging in spring as adults."

The trust said there have been only 29 reported sightings of sallow-shoot piercer moths on Britain's National Biodiversity Network Atlas, and none had ever before been seen north of Birmingham, England.

Higgins said he initially did not know the species of the moth, so he reached out to expert Mark Young via an online forum.

"Mark said he had a good idea of what the moth was and suggested I refer to a publication about the tortrix moth family and come back with an identification. I then told him what I thought it was, bearing in mind that it had never been recorded in Scotland before," Higgins told the Scottish Wildlife Trust.

"I was delighted when Mark agreed with my identification and confirmed that I had the privilege of being the first to record the moth on this side of the border," he said.

Billy Gray, the Scottish Wildlife Trust's West Central Reserves manager, described the discovery as "exciting."

"Bill's exciting discovery shows there is lots we don't know about Scotland's wildlife. It's likely that this species of moth has been in Scotland for some time and has simply gone unseen or unnoticed," he said.

USPS revs up electric truck purchase after intense pressure


The U.S. Postal Service announces it will now convert 40% of its aging mail truck fleet to electric vehicles following intense pressure from environmental groups and states. Photo courtesy of USPS

July 20 (UPI) -- Responding to public scrutiny and a lawsuit, the U.S. Postal Service announced Wednesday it will more than double its original plan to replace aging mail trucks with electric vehicles, raising the number from 10% of its fleet to 40%.

The USPS announcement increases the number of Next Generation Delivery Vehicles to 25,000. The announcement comes after hundreds of thousands of public comments and a lawsuit saying the mail carrier's plan did not do enough.

The attorneys general of 16 states and the District of Columbia sued the USPS in April over its original plans to replace the majority of its trucks with vehicles that burn fossil fuels. They argued the plan did not comply with the National Environmental Policy Act requiring federal agencies to conduct environmental reviews before making major decisions.

"Once this purchase goes through, we'll be stuck with more than 100,000 new gas-guzzling vehicles on neighborhood streets, serving homes across our state and across the country, for the next 30 years," California Attorney General Rob Bonta said in the lawsuit. "There won't be a reset button."

RELATED Lawsuit says USPS didn't do proper environmental review for vehicle purchase plan

The USPS argued it could not afford more electric vehicles without significant new funding, while the USPS inspector general found electric trucks would save more money over their lifetime.

Wednesday's announcement by the USPS comes as a number of private delivery companies, such as Amazon and FedEx, switch to EVs.

"USPS is beginning to get the message. They're now making 40% of their next fleet purchase battery electric," Earthjustice tweeted Wednesday. "But this should only be the beginning -- it's past time we started replacing retiring gas trucks with electric mail trucks."


"These vehicles are amongst the easiest to electrify, as they tend to run on short, set routes, idling often," Adrian Martinez, senior attorney on Earthjustice's Right to Zero campaign.

RELATED Electric truck maker Rivian gets $700M investment, led by Amazon

"Ultimately, the entire postal fleet needs to be electrified to deliver clean air in every neighborhood in the country and avoid volatile gas prices," Martinez said.

"The fight continues for an electrified postal delivery fleet."

HEALTHCARE CRISIS

Surgery risks mount if anesthesiologist faces heavy workload, study warns
By Judy Packer-Tursman

The number of overlapping surgeries managed by the anesthesiologist increases the risk of death or complications after major surgery, a new study says. 

Photo by Julian Rovagnati/Shutterstock
July 20 (UPI) -- For people undergoing major surgery, new research suggests they may want to check on the anesthesiologist's workload before a procedure that will put them to sleep.

That's because the number of overlapping procedures managed by an anesthesiologist increases the risk of death or complications after major surgery by as much as 14%, according to a study by researchers at the University of Michigan.

The research findings were published Wednesday in JAMA Surgery.

With the demand for major surgery growing, according to a news release, many clinicians, including anesthesia care teams are being asked to care for more patients.

RELATED Anesthesia safe for kids, doctors' group says

The anesthesia care team is the most common model used to deliver anesthesia in the United States, the release said. An anesthesia clinician -- either a certified registered nurse anesthetist, certified anesthesia assistant, anesthesiology resident or anesthesiologist -- is continuously present in the operating room, delivering care.

However, it is not uncommon to have one anesthesiologist directing the anesthesia care delivered by other clinicians for multiple surgical cases at a time, said Dr. Sachin Kheterpal, a coauthor of the study.

Kheterpal is the associate dean for research information technology and professor of anesthesiology at Michigan Medicine.

RELATED  Study: No link between anesthesia, mild cognitive impairment

The findings "suggest potential consequences of overlapping anesthesiologist responsibilities in perioperative team models and should be considered in clinical coverage efforts," the paper concludes.

"We know anesthesiologists in the operating room make a difference. This study shows it, and we need to do more studies like this," said Dr. Randall M. Clark, president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, which represents more than 55,000 physician anesthesiologists.

Clark told UPI in a phone interview Wednesday that the University of Michigan team is "a respected research group," asking the right questions -- "questions that ASA has been interested in for decades" -- and using a good set of data.

RELATED Anesthetic procedure could improve symptoms for veterans with PTSD

But further research is needed -- in larger groups and looking at a broader range of hospitals -- to make corresponding improvements, he said.

"This kind of analysis is exactly what we do every day," when determining staffing ratios for anesthesia during surgeries, said Clark, a professor of anesthesiology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine and pediatric cardiac anesthesiologist at 

"In my institution, we don't do 1-to-4 at all," meaning one anesthesiologist handling four overlapping surgery cases, Clark said. "And we always staff according to the needs of the patient and the complexity of the surgery."

Clark said that an anesthesiologist's workload can be highly variable, noting that the researchers found the group with the most overlapping anesthesia cases comprised only about 10% of the total, and "maybe less if you pull in exclusions."

In the new study, the investigators looked at major, non-cardiac inpatient surgeries performed in 23 U.S. academic and private hospitals from January 2010 through October 2017.

The researchers primarily analyzed 30-day mortality and cardiac, respiratory, gastrointestinal, urinary, bleeding and infectious complications from surgery.

The study included 578,815 adult patients, with a mean age of 55.7 years, undergoing major inpatient surgery within the Multicenter Perioperative Outcomes Group electronic health record registry based at the University of Michigan.

The researchers used anesthesiologists' sign-in and sign-out times to calculate continuous staffing for each surgery.

Then patients were placed into one of four groups: those receiving care from an anesthesiologist covering 1 operation (group 1); more than one to no more than two overlapping operations (group 1-2); more than two to no more than three overlapping operations (group 2-3); or more than three to no more than four overlapping operations (group 3-4).

After matching operations according to anesthesiologist staffing ratio, the investigators found that, compared with patients in group 1-2, those in group 2-3 had a 4% relative increase in risk-adjusted mortality and morbidity.

And, by comparison with patients in group 1-2, those in group 3-4 had a 14% increase in risk-adjusted mortality and morbidity.

The investigators acknowledged limitations of the study, including the fact that only 23 centers were involved.

And they didn't explore what they describe as the relatively rare instance of staffing more than four overlapping surgeries for the anesthesiologist.

NATURAL HIGH

Churches sue to use hallucinogenic tea in religious practice

By Pamela Manson

The Arizona Yagé Assembly’s leaders are suing for the right to use a hallucinogenic tea in their ceremonies. They meet in this maloka.

 Photo by Scott Stanley/Arizona Yagé Assembly

July 19 (UPI) -- Two Arizona churches are fighting in federal court to establish a right to use a sacramental tea brewed from plants containing a hallucinogenic compound in their religious practice.

The Arizona Yagé Assembly and the Church of the Eagle and the Condor allege in separate lawsuits that their constitutional right to the free exercise of their religion has been violated by federal agencies' seizure of their ayahuasca, an herbal tea that contains a small amount of dimethyltryptamine. DMT

The churches are seeking a declaration that the government's actions stopping them from using ayahuasca violate the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The act bars the government from substantially burdening a person's exercise of religion except in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest and only if an action is the least restrictive means of furthering that interest.

The Church of the Eagle and the Condor, based in Phoenix, says in its suit that U.S. Customs and Border Protection has been seizing and destroying ayahuasca since 2020. The church was founded in 2017 and has 40 active members.

Imbibing ayahuasca is rooted in the spirituality of Indigenous people in South America and "an essential mode of worship" for church members, according to the suit, which was filed in June. However, federal agencies allege any possession of ayahuasca, even for sincere religious purposes, violates the federal Controlled Substances Act, the suit says.

The CSA classifies ayahuasca as a Schedule I controlled substance, which are drugs that have a high potential for abuse and the potential to create severe psychological or physical dependence.

The church insists ayahuasca -- also known as yagé, huasca and daime -- is not addictive and is not known to be used recreationally. Made by boiling the stalks of the banisteriopsis caapi vine and adding psychotria viridis leaves, it has an unpleasant taste and causes many people to experience nausea and vomiting, the suit says.

"The church and its members are aware that their sacrament is proscribed by law, but they have partaken in their sacrament both before and after the United States made a credible threat of enforcement of the CSA against them," the suit says. "Plaintiffs are violating and intend to continue to violate applicable law, rather than compromise or terminate their sincerely held religious beliefs and practices."

The plaintiffs -- the church; Joseph Tafur, a physician who is its spiritual leader; and four members -- claim they were not provided due process before their ayahuasca was confiscated and the Drug Enforcement Agency has refused to respond to Freedom of Information Act filings seeking more specific information about the seizures.

Trying for settlement

The Arizona Yagé Assembly in Tucson and the San Francisco-based North American Association of Visionary Churches filed suit in 2020 alleging their members are "substantially burdened" by laws prohibiting importation, distribution and possession of ayahuasca.

"Because DMT is listed as a Schedule I controlled substance under the Controlled Substances Act (the 'CSA'), and because the DEA and DHS interpret the law to enact a complete ban against the religious sacrament ayahuasca, members are forced to choose between obedience to their religion and criminal sanction," the suit says.

Arizona Yagé Assembly obtains its sacramental ayahuasca from Peru from trusted sources, according to the suit. Without ayahuasca, congregants are unable to practice their religion, the suit says.

"During ceremonies, many members experience deep religious sentiments directly connected with their own life experience, reviewing incidents from their past, recognizing their errors and those of others, purging their own guilt and forgiving others their wrongs, receiving mercy and forgiveness from the divine source and experiencing the restful peace of divine love," the suit says.

Other plaintiffs who joined the suit were Scott Stanley, director of NAAVC and founder and director of the Arizona Yagé Assembly; the Vine of Light Church in Phoenix; and the late Clay Villanueva, who was the church's founder and minister and an NAAVC board member.

The defendants in each case are Attorney General Merrick Garland and top officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Both suits are pending in U.S. District Court in Phoenix before different judges.

Most of the claims in the Arizona Yagé Assembly case were dismissed in March but the church filed an amended suit. The parties began settlement negotiations in mid-June and were ordered by U.S. District Judge Roslyn Silver to submit an update by July 27.

'Honor the spirit'

Stanley said the Ayahuasca Yagé Assembly plans to continue meeting twice a month at its maloka, a ceremonial round house, in the desert west of Tucson. He estimates 5,000 to 6,000 people have attended the religious organization's ceremonies since its founding in 2015.

His first experience with ayahuasca was in 2009, Stanley said.

"The message in my very first ceremony was to 'honor the spirit.' Since that time, I've been making every effort to simply honor the spirit," he said.

The government has not seized all of his church's ayahuasca, but every time the sacrament is confiscated, "it brings us one step closer to not being able to engage in our religious practice," Stanley said. Arizona Yagé Assembly sued to secure its rights only after exhausting all administrative remedies.

"We tried on numerous occasions to petition the DEA, write the DEA, contact the DEA," he said. "We weren't able to."

The suit was filed on May 5, 2020. Two weeks later, Villanueva's home, where he held religious ceremonies, was raided by a drug task force, which seized ayahuasca, marijuana and psilocybin mushrooms, according to court records. The Vine of Light Church closed as a result of the raid.

Villanueva, who was not arrested then, joined the lawsuit. He was taken into custody on Aug. 23, while boarding a plane in Los Angeles to go to Peru for cancer treatment.

His lawyer, Charles Carreon, said a grand jury had indicted Villanueva on drug counts stemming from the raid, but his client was never informed there were charges pending against him or that a warrant had been issued for his arrest. Villanueva, 60, was eventually released from jail pending trial and died April 1.

Debate over sincerity

In a brief opposing Arizona Yagé Assembly's request for an injunction barring the prosecution of the church or its members for importing or ingesting ayahuasca, the federal agencies say the government has a compelling interest in protecting the health and safety of ceremony participants.

Ingesting ayahuasca has been shown to result in hallucinations, agitation, tachycardia, confusion, heightened blood pressure and vomiting and, in rare instances, seizures, respiratory arrest and cardiac arrest, the brief says.

The DEA also has an interest in reducing the incidence of illicit recreational use of ayahuasca, the brief says.

In addition, the agencies say the Arizona Yagé Assembly has not demonstrated the sincerity of its members' religious beliefs.

"AYA's filings contain very few details about basic membership requirements," the brief says. "Without this information, AYA has not demonstrated that 'membership' in AYA actually represents an expression of a sincerely held religious belief in ayahuasca as a sacrament."

Even if sincere, their religious exercise it's not substantially burdened, according to the brief, which points out religious claimants can ask for an exemption from the Controlled Substance Act for religious ayahuasca use.

And, the brief says, the church has been holding ceremonies for years, advertising them for $325 to $775 on its website, which shows members have not been coerced to act contrary to their religious beliefs.

Arizona Yagé Assembly counters the DEA published "Guidance Regarding Petitions for Religious Exemption from the Controlled Substances Act Pursuant to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act" but has never granted an exemption under the guidance.

The group also says its members are sincere.

"Ayahuasca is almost exclusively consumed in religious ceremonies; accordingly, visionary churches whose sacrament is ayahuasca are using a sacrament that in itself affirms their claim of religious sincerity," the suit says.

Committed to religion

Two churches that have been using ayahuasca for years won court rulings saying their activities are legal.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2006 affirmed the right of O Centro Espírita Beneficente União do Vegetal in Santa Fe, N.M., to continue using hoasca as a sacrament. The unanimous decision said the government had not shown a compelling interest under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to ban the substance for religious use by União do Vegetal, a Christian Spiritist group based in Brazil.

In Oregon, members of the Church of the Holy Light of the Queen, another Brazil-based religion, have been using ayahuasca, which they call daime, since the 1990s.

Jonathan Goldman, a spiritual leader, said he was introduced to daime in 1987, when he went to Brazil with his therapist. Goldman, who was living in Boston then and working as an acupuncturist, had been in therapy for many years and he said drinking the tea changed his life

"I got to feel what needed to heal in me and to start to truly heal it inside of me," he said.

After he made a trip to Brazil in 1993 and smuggled daime into the United States in his suitcase, Goldman founded the Church of the Holy Light of the Queen with authorization from the Santo Daime mother church.

Goldman has been leading ceremonies in the small town of Ashland, Ore., where he and his family have lived since 1990. He describes the faith as a "gnostic primitive Catholic religion."

In May 1999, federal agents raided Goldman's house to seize a shipment of daime tea. Goldman said he was threatened by a state prosecutor with arrest and incarceration if he were caught bringing in the tea again or holding ceremonies.

Members then decided to hold ceremonies in secret and to stop keeping records of the church's activities.

After the 2006 ruling in the União do Vegetal suit, church leaders prepared to take their own case to court. They resumed gathering information to show the sincerity of participants, the lineage of the religion, how ceremony participants are taken care of and how the daime is safeguarded.

"We documented everything, everything, everything, everything," Goldman said.

In March 2009, U.S. District Judge Owen Panner in Oregon ruled the Religious Freedom Restoration Act requires that church members be allowed to import and drink daime tea in ceremonies.

Panner noted participants fill out detailed questionnaires about their medical conditions and experienced members act as "guardians" to tend to those suffering from nausea. The fact that ceremonies were conducted in secret shows the sincerity of church members because they remain committed to practicing their religion despite the threat of criminal prosecution, the ruling said.

Goldman said the church's relationship with government agents has been "very peaceful" since the case was resolved.

"They're just people doing their job," he said. "They're really not trying to trip us up."

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yage_Letters

  

Perhaps it’s time to kick Joe Manchin out of the Democratic party

Robert Reich

At every opportunity, Manchin has sabotaged Democrats’ agenda. What’s going on here? It’s spelled m-o-n-e-y

‘Manchin has not only taken more campaign contributions from oil, gas and coal companies than any other senator but has one of the largest war chests from all big American corporations.’ 

Photograph: Michael Reynolds/EPA

Wed 20 Jul 2022 

After putting a final spear through the heart of what remained of Biden’s and the Democrat’s domestic agenda, West Virginia’s Democratic senator Joe Manchin now rejects any tax increases on big corporations or the wealthy – until inflation is no longer a problem.

This is rich, in every sense of the word. Raising taxes on big American corporations and the wealthy would not fuel inflation. It would slow inflation by reducing demand – and do it in a way that wouldn’t hurt lower-income Americans (such as those living in, say, West Virginia).


As a 76-year-old let me say: Joe Biden is too old to run again
Robert Reich

Manchin’s state is one of the poorest in America. West Virginia ranks 45th in education, 47th in healthcare, 48th in overall prosperity and 50th in infrastructure.

Tax revenue from corporations and billionaires could be used to rebuild West Virginia, among other places that need investment around America.

But Manchin doesn’t seem to give a cluck. After all, the Democrats’ agenda – which Manchin has obliterated – included pre-K education, free community college, child subsidies, Medicare dental and vision benefits, paid family leave, elder care, and much else – all of enormous value to West Virginia. (On a per-person basis, West Virginians would have benefitted more than the residents of all but two other states.)

It’s not as if Manchin has championed anything else Democrats have sought. Remember Manchin’s “bipartisan compromise” on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act? Nothing came of it, of course.

Nothing has come of any of the fig leaves Manchin has conjured to cover his unrelenting opposition to every other Democratic goal.

What’s going on here? It’s spelled m-o-n-e-y.

Few if any American-based global corporations or billionaires reside in West Virginia, but lots of money flows to Manchin from corporations and billionaires residing elsewhere.

Manchin has not only taken more campaign contributions from oil, gas and coal companies than any other senator (as well as dividends from his own coal company), he has one of the largest war chests from all big American corporations.

If the Democratic party had any capacity to discipline its lawmakers or hold them accountable (if pigs could fly), it would at least revoke Manchin’s chairmanship of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

To continue to allow this crucial position to be occupied by the man who has single-handedly blocked one of the last opportunities to save the Earth is a thumb in the eye of the universe.

I’m told the Democrats don’t dare take this step for fear Manchin would leave the Democratic party and switch his allegiance to the Republicans.

Why exactly would this be so terrible? Manchin already acts like a Republican.

Oh, no! they tell me. If Manchin switches parties, Democrats would lose control over the Senate.

Well, I have news for Democrats. They already lost control over the Senate.

In fact, the way things are right now, Biden and the Democrats have the worst of both worlds. They look like they control the Senate, as well as the House and the presidency. But they can’t get a damn thing done because Manchin (and his intermittent sidekick, Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema) won’t let them.

So after almost two years of appearing to run the entire government, Democrats have accomplished almost nothing of what they came to Washington to do.

America is burning and flooding but Democrats won’t enact climate measures.

Voting rights and reproductive rights are being pulverized but Democrats won’t protect them.

Gun violence is out of control but Democrats come up with a miniature response.

Billionaires and big corporations are siphoning off more national wealth and income than in living memory and paying a lower tax rate (often zero), but Democrats won’t raise taxes on big corporations and the wealthy.

Which means that in November’s midterm elections, Democrats will have to go back to voters and say: “We promised a lot but we delivered squat, so please vote for us again.”

This does not strike me as a compelling message.

By kicking Manchin out of the party, Democrats could at least go into the midterms with a more realistic pitch: “It looked like we had control of the Senate, but we didn’t. Now that you know who the real Democrats are, give us the power and we will get it done.”

Maybe this way they’ll pick up more real Democratic senators, and do it.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com